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RUSSIA 

HER  STRENGTH  AND  HER  WEAKNESS 

A  Study  of  the  Present  Conditions  of  the  Russian 
Empire,  with  an  Analysis  of  its  Resources 

AND  A  Forecast  of  its  Future 


BY 

WOLF  VON  SCHIERBRAND.  Ph.D. 

AUTHOR   OF    "GERMANY:     THE    WELDING   OF   A  WORLD    POWER "  ; 

"the  kaiser's  speeches,"  etc.,  etc. 


Published  for  the 
BAY  VIEW  READING  CLUB 

General  Office  :  165  Boston  Boulevard 
DETROIT,  MICH. 

BY   G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
New  York  London 


Copyright,  1904 

BY 

WOLF  VON  SCHIERBRAND 


Published,  May,  1904 
Reprinted,  June,  1904 


Ubc  IRnicfecrbocIicr  press,  "Mew  IJorb 


<ifUJF 

ifflh. 

DK 
533r 


PREFACE 

WITH  the  considerable  number  of  books  on  Russia 
extant,  it  may  well  be  asked  why  the  present 
work  was  written.  The  answer  to  that  must  be:  be- 
cause, so  far  as  the  author  knows,  no  previous  mono- 
graph is  in  existence  either  covering  the  same  ground 
or  dealing  in  the  same  spirit  with  the  subjects  discussed. 

It  has  been  the  author's  main  object  in  this  book  to 
lay  bare,  without  bias  either  way,  the  sources  and  ex- 
tent of  both  Russia's  strength  and  weakness,  and  to  do 
so  on  the  most  reliable  and  most  recent  data  and  au- 
thorities. How  far  he  has  been  successful  in  this  must 
be  left  to  the  reader's  own  judgment.  In  the  book  it- 
self it  is  pointed  out  that  the  searcher  after  truth  is 
labouring  under  peculiar  difiSculties  in  dealing  with 
facts  concerning  Russia.  These  difl&culties  have  been 
overcome  so  far  as  that  seemed  humanly  possible.  But 
no  claim  for  infallibility  has  been  set  up  here.  Indeed, 
on  many  minor  points  the  author  is  open  to  correction. 

It  is  not  believed,  however,  that  any  indulgence  is 
necessary  in  the  case  of  the  main  contention  made  in 
this  book;  namely,  that  by  pursuing  for  another  con- 
siderable length  of  time  the  present  policy  of  foreign 
aggression  and  utter  disregard  of  internal  needs,  Russia 
is  on  the  road  to  national  perdition, 

iii 


iv  Preface 

The  chief  factors  standing  on  the  one  side  for  Rus- 
sia's territorial  expansion,  and  on  the  other  for  the 
present  state  of  calamitous  decay  of  internal  resources, 
have  been  carefully  and  calmly  considered  one  by  one. 
It  seems  to  the  writer  certain  that  the  conclusion  which 
he  has  arrived  at,  being  based  on  premises  which 
in  the  main  are  unshakable,  cannot  be  far  from  the 
truth.  Indeed,  to  any  impartial  mind  once  in  posses- 
sion of  the  chain  of  cohesive  facts,  the  conclusion  seems 
inevitable. 

Two  all-important  facts  strike  the  observer  of  the 
Russia  of  to-day. 

For  one,  we  see  a  steady  and  rapid  territorial  expan- 
sion, adding  constantly  to  the  empire  vast  lands  which 
are  ever  farther  and  farther  from  the  centre  of  power 
and  which  are  inhabited  by  races  having  neither  com- 
munity of  blood  nor  of  sympathies  with  the  main  body 
of  the  population.  This  expansion  has  for  many  years 
been  inordinately  straining  all  the  resources  of  the  em- 
pire, to  the  complete  neglect  of  pressing  internal  re- 
forms. And  all  along  the  rate  of  this  territorial  growth 
has  been  so  fast  as  to  leave  the  body  politic  no  time  for 
assimilating  the  new  accretions.  The  enormous  ag- 
grandisement of  Russia  under  these  circumstances 
forms  one  of  the  great  causes  of  its  intrinsic  weakness; 
all  this  irrespective  of  the  consideration  that  the  huge 
and  increasing  bulk  of  the  empire  has  added  to  its 
prestige  and  to  the  fear  in  which  it  is  generally  held. 

The  second  ruling  fact  is  found  in  the  peculiar  in- 


Preface  v 

ternal  conditions  of  Russia,  the  latter  term  in  this  in- 
stance being  confined  in  the  main  to  the  European 
portion,  that  is,  the  one  which  ultimately  must  infuse 
the  vaster  Asiatic  part  with  population,  capital,  and  a 
new  moral  standard.  As  the  determining  elements  in 
these  conditions  must  be  mentioned:  the  increasing 
exhaustion  of  Russia's  "black-earth  belt,"  that  is,  that 
region  with  the  final  redemption  or  total  impoverish- 
ment of  which  Russia  must  stand  or  fall;  the  present 
financial  policy,  based  on  a  hothouse  industry  (fore- 
doomed from  the  start  to  eventual  failure),  and  to  an 
enforced  large  excess  of  exports  over  imports;  and, 
finally,  the  prevailing  system  of  centralisation  and  of 
alienating  all  non-Russian  elements,  which  form  fully 
one-third  of  the  total  population. 

The  deduction  from  all  this  must  be,  as  a  leading 
Russian  writer  not  long  ago  expressed  it :  "  When  the 
core  is  unsound,  how  can  the  branches  be  healthy?  " 

The  Russian  problem,  in  any  event,  is  a  gigantic  one. 
Its  solution,  one  way  or  the  other,  will  directly  and  in- 
directly contribute  a  great  deal  to  the  solution  of  the 
whole  problem  of  mankind.  A  power  which  holds  in 
its  grasp  one-sixth  of  the  land  on  this  globe  of  ours,  is 
no  negligible  quantity.  For  weal  or  woe,  the  cause  of 
Russia  is  also  our  own  cause.  Her  prosperity  or  de- 
generacy, the  question  whether  her  130  millions  will 
within  the  near  future  find  or  fail  to  find  the  form 
of  government  best  adapted  to  their  welfare  and  their 
development,   concerns  every  one  of  us  very  closely. 


vi  Preface 

For  the  reaction  on  other  nations,  whichever  the  out- 
come, must  necessarily  be  very  strong. 

As  to  the  information  upon  which  the  author  has  re- 
hed  in  predicating  his  facts  and  arguments,  all  that  is 
needful  to  say  is  that  it  came  to  him  partly  during  an 
extensive  tour  through  European  and  Asiatic  Russia 
undertaken  some  years  ago,  and  that  another  part  has 
been  derived  from  the  best  available  and  original 
sources,  Russian  by  preference,  and  very  largely  oflB- 
cial,  such  as  government  reports,  published  budgets 
and  decrees,  memorials  written  by  former  or  present 
Russian  statesmen  and  men  of  affairs.  This  has  been 
supplemented  by  extracts,  statistics,  quotations,  and 
arguments  taken  from  the  writings  of  the  foremost 
Russian  statisticians  and*  economists.  The  Russian 
newspaper  and  periodical  press  has  also  been  consulted 
and  made  use  of  to  some  extent.  For  a  final  part  of 
his  information,  quantitively  small  but  intrinsically 
very  valuable,  the  author  owes  thanks  to  a  dear  friend 

in  St.  Petersburg. 

W.  V.  S. 

New  York,  March  15,  1904. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

RUSSIAN   EXPANSION I 

The  Territorial  Growth  of  Russia  Similar  to  that  of  the 
United  States  —  Period  before  Peter  the  Great  the 
Happiest  the  People  ever  Knew — Process  of  Extension 
and  the  Causes  for  It — Military  Schooling  of  an  Un- 
warlike  Nation  in  the  Strife  with  Turkey  and  Sweden 
— Instinct,  not  Statesmanship,  the  Motive  Power  of 
Expansion— Have  the  People  been  Benefited  Thereby  ? 
— No  Internal  Progress  for  a  Space  of  150  Years — Au- 
tocratic Ambitions  the  Mainspring  of  Russia's  Foreign 
Policy — Racially  the  Russians,  as  Shown  by  their 
History,  are  Peace-Loving — The  Old  Russian  Party 
and  its  Survival  to  this  Present  Day — The  Warning  of 
a  Great  Russian  Statesman  Unheeded — The  Russian 
Masses  Look  upon  the  Wars  with  Turkey  as  Modern 
Crusades — Strange  Part  Played  by  the  Cossacks  in  the 
Formation  of  this  Sentiment — The  Latest  War  with 
Turkey,  and  after 

CHAPTER  II 

RUSSIA  AS  A  WORLD   POWER  .  .  .  .      18 

The  Claims  of  Russia  Rest  Solely  on  her  Enormous 
Size— What  Russia  has  Done  and  Left  Undone  in  De- 
veloping her  Asiatic  Possessions — The  Muscovite  as 
a  Coloniser — Prospective  Prosperity  of  Transcaucasia, 
Turkestan,  and  South-western  Siberia— Foreign  Enter- 

vii 


viii  Contents 

PAGE 

prise  There — Grumblings  of  the  Russian  Press — Russia 
Distinctively  an  Asiatic  and  not  a  European  Power — 
A  Parallel  between  Russian  and  English  Colonising 
Methods,  Showing  a  Striking  Contrast — The  Paucity 
of  Native  Capital — The  Role  which  the  Cossack  has 
Played — Russia's  Part  in  Far  Asia — It  Involves  a  Large 
Increase  in  her  National  Expenditures — The  Problem 
of  Manchuria — The  Russian  Meets  the  Chinaman — 
Economic  Superiority  of  the  Latter  —  Prince  Ukh- 
tomski's  Opinion — Russia's  Present  Expansion  Policy 
Far  Exceeding  her  Legitimate  Needs — Her  Far  Asiatic 
Possessions  the  Most  Unprofitable  of  All — Her  Proper 
"Interest  Sphere" — The  Question  of  Russian  Ascend- 
ancy within  the  Empire — A  Summary 


CHAPTER  III 

RUSSIAN  FINANCES 49 

The  Great  Difficulty  of  Obtaining  Reliable  Figures  for 
Russia's  Actual  Financial  Condition  —  Paucity  of 
Capital  in  the  Country  and  Reasons  Therefor — Sur- 
vival of  Obsolete  Trading  Methods— National  Finances 
Begin  with  Peter  the  Great's  Reforms — A  Fluctuating 
Currency — Within  the  Past  Seventeen  Years  Russia's 
Avowed  National  Debt  has  Increased  by  Over  Two 
Billions  —  The  All-Important  Role  of  the  Foreign 
Creditor — Wishnegradsky's  Mercantilism — Witte  Fol- 
lows in  his  Footsteps — A  Vast  Increase  in  Exports  is 
Brought  about  by  Artificial  Means — The  Peasant  and 
Landowner,  Forming  Ninety  Per  Cent,  of  the  Total 
Population,  Being  the  Sufferers  —  Witte's  Methods 
Shown  in  Detail  —  Industrial  Development  of  the 
Country  —  The  French  Alliance  Systematically  Util- 
ised —  The  French  Creditor  now  Averse  to  Further 
Loans — A  Government  Monopoly  System— Constant 
Difficulty  of  Maintaining  the  Gold  Standard — The 
"Gold  Tribute  "—Russia's  Railroads  do  Not  Pay  — 
Reasons  for  This  —  The  Liquor  Monopoly — Facts  and 
Figures  Proving  the  Unsoundness  of  Russia's  Finances 


Contents  ix 

CHAPTER  IV 

PAGE 

RISE   AND   COLLAPSE  OF   INDUSTRY  .  .  .87 

Russian  Industry  a  Hothouse  Product  of  her  Two 
Latest  Finance  Ministers,  Wishnegradsky  and  De 
Witte — Dwindling  of  her  One-Time  Peculiar  Rural 
Industry,  an  Out-Growth  of  Serfdom — Russia  Fulfils 
Not  One  of  the  Three  Main  Conditions  of  a  Successful 
Modern  Industry — Up  to  a  Few  Years  Ago  Russia's 
Captains  of  Industry  Were  All  Foreigners — The  Large 
Number  of  Russian  Holidays  a  Great  Drawback — The 
Modern  Moujik  is  Half  Rural  and  Half  Industrial 
Labourer — Fiscalism  the  Key -Note  to  Witte' s  System 
—  Complete  Breakdown  of  Russia's  Industry  During 
the  Last  Couple  of  Years — Russia's  Asiatic  Market 
Insignificant  —  Foreign  Capital  Now  Very  Shy  of 
Russian  Investment — The  True  Industrial  Salvation 
of  Russia  Concealed  in  the  Svietelka — An  Opportunity 
for  a  Broad-Gauge  Statesman  in  Russia 


*&^ 


CHAPTER  V 

AGRICULTURE   AND   PEASANTRY      .  .  .  .Ill 

Chief  Reasons  for  the  Decline  of  Both — Emancipation 
of  the  Serfs  not  an  Unmixed  Blessing — At  Present 
Russian  Peasant  Holdings  Average  Five  Acres  per 
Head,  Insufficient  to  Draw  Enough  for  the  Sustenance 
of  Life— Conditions  Worst  in  the  "  Black-Earth  Belt" 
—  Division  and  Subdivision  of  Holdings  under  the 
Workings  of  the  Communal  System — Excessive  Rate 
of  Land  Taxation— A  Russian  National  Fetish  Based 
on  Historical  Error — Indications  that  the  Communal 
System  is  Doomed — The  Kulak  as  a  Social  and  Eco- 
nomic Force  in  Rural  Russia — Decrease  of  Fertility  in 
Soil  and  in  the  Number  of  Cattle  and  Horses — Inter- 
esting Facts  Gathered  from  NovikofTs  Official  Report 
— The  Problem  of  Tax  Arrears — Reasons  why  Famines 
have  Become  a  Permanent  Feature  of  Russia — Starving 
for  the  Benefit  of  Government  Finances — The  Average 


X  Contents 

PAGE 

Russian  Recruit  on  Joining  the  Army  Eats  his  Fill 
for  the  First  Time  in  his  Life— A  Realistic  Picture  of 
the  Miseries  of  Russian  Peasant  Life — Peasant  Wages 
Averaging  Ten  Cents  per  Diem— First  Faint  Traces 
of  Rural  Reform 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   FAMOUS   BLACK-EARTH   BELT  .  .  .148 

Its  Importance  to  the  Nation— With  it  Russia  Stands 
or  Falls — General  Recognition  of  this  Fact  by  Rus- 
sian Thinkers — This  District  Comprises  Two-thirds  of 
European  Russia  in  Territory  and  One-half  in  Popu- 
lation— From  the  Most  Fertile  in  the  Whole  of  Europe 
it  Has  Sunk  to  a  Land  Agriculturally  Exhausted  — 
Taxes  Cannot  be  Collected  and  Frequent  Famines 
there  Require  Constant  Government  Aid— The  Whole 
of  this  Belt  Labours  for  Export  of  Wheat  and  Rye— 
The  Province  of  Samara  Furnishes  a  Striking  Instance 
of  Steadily  Proceeding  Exhaustion  of  the  Soil — Some 
Facts  and  Figures — Causes  for  this  Apparently  Per- 
manent Decline— What  NovikoflF,  a  High  Government 
Ofl&cial,  Has  to  Say  on  the  Subject — Apathy  and  Blind 
Obedience  the  Ruling  Traits  of  the  Peasantry— The 
Shark-like  Role  of  the  Orthodox  Church— Is  Russia 
Shifting  her  Centre  ? — Government  Investigations  and 
their  Futility— The  "Black-Earth  Belt"  within  the 
Last  Decade  Has  Agriculturally  Remained  behind 
Half  a  Billion  of  Roubles— A  Notable  Cry  of  Pain  in 
the  Grashdanin — What  Will  be  the  Result  of  Another 
Polish  Revolution  in  Russia  ? 


CHAPTER  VII 

DECAY   OF  THE  NOBILITY 169 

A  Striking  Parallel  with  the  Former  Southern  Slave- 
holders in  the  United  States — Patriarchal  Conditions 
under   the    Old    Regime,    Suddenly    Superseded    by 


Contents  xi 

PAGE 

Wholly  Modern  Ones— The  Russian  Nobility  Proved 
its  Incapacity  to  Adapt  themselves  to  New  Conditions 

—  "Easy  Money"  Furnished  by  the  Government 
Proves  the  Ruin  of  the  Estate  Owners— One  Billion 
and  a  Half  of  Roubles  Squandered  within  Twenty 
Years  by  the  Russian  Nobility— TerpigorefTs  Realistic 
Tales  Show  the  Process  of  Degeneration— One-third 
of  the  Titled  Landowners  Driven  off  their  Paternal 
Acres  by  Spendthrift  Methods  and  Usury— Absenteeism 
Another  Deplorable  Feature — The  Only  Flourishing 
Estates  in  Russia  Proper  Are  those  of  the  Sugar  Beet 
Raisers  —  The  One-Crop  System  and  the  Decline  of 
Cattle  Breeding— The  Central  Government  Unable  tp 
Stay  the  Nobility  in  their  Downward  Course 

CHAPTER  VHI 

CHURCH    AND    MORALS IQI 

Relations  of  the  Clergy  with  the  People — From  the 
Recollections  of  a  Village  Priest—"  Drink,  Batooshka, 
Drink  !  "—The  Priest's  Sole  Diversion  in  the  Country 
Is  Vodka — Insufficient  Means  of  Income  and  Debasing 
Surroundings- Figures  from  the  Budget  of  the  Holy 
Synod— Striking  Contrast  between  the  Russian  Priest 
in  partes  infideliuni  and  the  One  Left  at  Home — His 
Most  Meritorious  Work  the  Hunting  Down  and  Con- 
version of  Renegades  and  Sectarians  —  The  Holy 
Synod  has  Always  Money  for  Proselytising  Ventures 

—  Official  Statistics  Regarding  Vice  and  Crime  in 
Russia  Scarce  and  Unreliable  —  But  Recent  Russian 
Literature  Holds  up  the  Mirror  to  Life— Among  the 
Peasantry  are  Noticeable  Two  Main  Facts,  namely,  the 
Loosening  of  the  Marriage  Tie  and  the  Decrease  of 
Maternal  Affection  and  Sentiment  of  Duty— Frightful 
Infant  Mortality— The  Unstable  Conditions  of  Russian 
Peasant  Life  largely  Responsible  —  Apathy  of  the 
Orthodox  Church  Bears  also  Much  of  the  Blame- 
Russian  Sects— People  of  the  Old  Faith,  the  Stundists, 
the  Molokhans,  and  Dukhoborzis— The  British  Bible 


xii  Contents 

PAGE 

Society  First  Introduces  the  Gospels  in  Russian  to  the 
Masses — Pashkoff  and  his  Followers — A  Remarkable 
Type  of  the  Modern  Russian  Christian — Despite  all 
Persecution  a  Steady  Increase  in  Russian  Sectarianism 

CHAPTER  IX 

SLOW  GROWTH   OF  A  MIDDI^E   CLASS       .  .  •    215 

The  Muscovite  Rulers  of  the  L,ate  Middle  Ages  De- 
stroyed the  Civic  Spirit  and  Broke  the  Freedom  and 
Privileges  of  the  Ancient  Towns — Why  the  Free  Cos- 
sack Settlements  Never  Became  Organised  Common- 
wealths—The Growth  of  a  New  Middle  Class  Dates 
Back  but  Ten  Years — ^Urban  Population  Concentrating 
in  the  Few  Large  Cities — Small  Municipal  Budgets, 
Rendering  Modern  Improvements  Impossible  —  De- 
cline of  the  Old  Provincial  Centres  and  Reasons  There- 
for— Russia's  Deficient  System  of  Public  Education — 
The  Part  Played  Respectively  by  the  Government, 
Provincial  Administrations,  and  Communes  —  The 
Question  of  Church  Schools — Russian  Teachers  as  a 
Body:  Their  Salaries,  Professional  Training,  and  At- 
tainments —  Religious  Intolerance  Taught  System- 
atically at  School — A  Few  Statistics  Showing  the  Poor 
Results  of  the  Present  Sj'stem — The  Russian  Student 
and  his  Present  Frame  of  Mind — A  New  and  Im- 
portant Element:  Sons  of  the  Orthodox  Clergy  —  A 
Few  Notes  on  Russian  Literature 

CHAPTER  X 

INTERNAL  RACE  STRIFE 238 

Traditional  Hatred  of  the  Russian  for  Pole,  Tartar, 
and  Turk — Unfortunate  Coincidence  of  the  Rise  of  the 
Press  and  the  Introduction  of  Reforms  under  Alex- 
ander II.  with  the  Date  of  the  Polish  Uprising  in  1863 
—  Arousal  of  the  Russian  Jingo  Spirit  —  Since  the 
Sixties  the  Katkoff  Party  and  its  Disciples  Engaged 
in  a  Campaign  of  Russification  Aimed  at  All  the  Non- 


Contents  xlii 

PAGE 

Russian  Elements  Residing  within  the  Borders  of  the 
Empire — Poland  the  First  to  Suffer — Next  Came  the 
Baltic  German  Provinces  —  Lastly,  Finland  and  the 
Caucasus  Populations,  Particularly  the  Armenians — 
How  the  Czarish  Government  Found  itself  between 
Two  Main  Currents  of  Russian  Aspiration — The  Choice 
in  Favour  of  the  Jingo  Current  a  Matter  of  Internal 
Necessity 

CHAPTER  XI 

RUSSIAN   BUREAUCRACY 254 

The  Bomb  which  Killed  Alexander  H.,  Twenty-three 
Years  Ago,  Killed  also  Projected  Internal  Reform — 
T.iie  Long  and  Bitter  Struggle  between  the  Handi- 
capped Provincial  Chambers  and  the  Central  Govern- 
ment— Though  Hindered  in  Every  Possible  "Way  these 
Local  Bodies  have  Accomplished  Quite  a  Deal  of  Good 
— The  Further  Extension  of  their  Powers  Would  Do 
Much  to  Neutralise  the  Great  Harm  Done  by  Cen- 
tralising Bureaucracy — The  Creeping  in  of  Disloyal 
Elements  within  Russian  Officialdom — Present  Cen- 
tralising and  Monopolistic  Tendencies  —  New  Plans 
in  this  Direction — Popular  Hatred  of  Bureaucracy — 
The  Chief  Faults  of  the  Present  Bureaucratic  System  : 
Unwieldiness  of  the  Machine,  Widely  Diffused  Cor- 
ruption, Divergent  Policies  and  Methods,  Impossibility 
of  Control,  Aversion  to  Reform  and  to  a  Consider- 
ation of  Popular  Wants— Fiscality  Extending  in  Russia 
—  Workings  of  the  New  Liquor  Monopoly — System 
of  Supervising  the  Universities  —  The  Rural  District 
Captains — Some  Amusing  Specimens  of  Red-Tapeism 
— Political  Forces  in  Russia  and  in  English-Speaking 
Countries 

CHAPTER    XII 

CHIEF  REFORMS   NEEDED 277 

The  Desirability  of  Abolishing  the  Alir  Conceded  by 
Nearly  All  Thinking  Russians— To  Expand  the  Scope 
and  Powers  of  the  Provincial  Chambers  Likewise  Held 


xiv  Contents 

of  Chief  Importance — Nicholas  II.  and  his  Prime  Ad- 
visers, however,  Have  so  far  Strenuously  Opposed  the 
Last-Named  Reform  Measure — Facts  as  to  the  Gradual 
Curtailment  of  Prerogatives  Originally  Granted  these 
Provincial  Representative  Bodies  —  The  Principal 
Reason  for  This :  Fear  of  Abridging  the  Czarish 
Power  —  Views  of  Alexander  II.  on  this  Matter  Ex- 
pressed to  the  Russian  Ambassador  in  lyondon  —  At 
Present  the  Provincial  Chambers  are  the  Mere 
Shadows  of  their  Former  Selves  —  The  Problem  of 
Provincial  Autonomy,  as  AflFecting,  Respectively,  the 
Purely  Russian  and  the  Western  Border  Provinces — 
Instances  Illustrating  the  Evils  Wrought  by  the  Pre- 
vailing Tendency  towards  Uniformity — Provincial  and 
Ivocal  Autonomy  the  Goal  Striven  for  by  Both  Russian 
and  Non-Russian  Subjects  of  the  Empire — The  Cos- 
sacks Strikingly  Show  the  Great  Good  which  such 
Semi-Independence  from  the  Central  Government  and 
its  Organs  Would  Bring  to  the  Nation  as  a  Whole — 
A  Parallel  with  Russia  at  the  Close  of  the  Crimean 
War 


GLOSSARY 


Arsheen — about  sixteen  inches. 

ArTEI, — an  organised  body  of  workmen. 

BaTooshka— "  Little  Father,"  used  as  a  term  of  respect. 

Dessyatine— 2400  square  sashe,  or  about  2)/^  acres  in  English 

or  American  measurement. 
ISPRAVNiK — police  commissioner. 
Izba — peasant's  hut. 
KibiTka — a  light  Russian  vehicle. 
Kniaze— prince,  title  for  the  old  Russian  nobles. 
Kopek— copper  coin,  the  hundredth  part  of  a  rouble. 
Mir — village  commune. 
Obrok — "  head  money,"  an  annual  payment  formerly  required 

of  serfs  allowed  to  reside  in  towns. 
OuRiADNiK — rural  policeman. 
Pood — about  forty  pounds. 
QVAS — a  sort  of  beer. 
ROUBI.E — about  iifty  to  fifty-two  cents  in  American  money,  or 

two  shillings  in  English  money. 
STarosTa — head  of  a  village  chosen  by  the  commune. 
Starshina — mayor  of  a  volost. 
Stshi — a  national  dish  made  of  cabbage. 
SviETEi,KA — a  rural  co-operative  factory. 
Traktir — a  tavern. 
VERST — 1 166  yards. 
Vodka — Russian  spirits. 
Voi,osT  —  administrative    unit    composed    of    several    village 

communes. 
Zemski  Natchalnik — official  controlling  peasant  affairs  in  a 

province. 
Zemstvo  (plural,  Zemstva)— provincial  chamber. 


XT 


RUSSIA 


CHAPTER  I 

RUSSIAN  EXPANSION 

The  Territorial  Growth  of  Russia  Similar  to  that  of  the  United 
States— Period  before  Peter  the  Great  the  Happiest  the 
People  ever  Knew — Process  of  Extension  and  the  Causes 
for  It — Military  Schooling  of  an  Unwarlike  Nation  in  the 
Strife  with  Turkey  and  Sweden — Instinct,  not  Statesman- 
ship, the  Motive  Power  of  Expansion — Have  the  People 
been  Benefited  Thereby  ?  —  No  Internal  Progress  for  a 
Space  of  150  Years — Autocratic  Ambitions  the  Mainspring 
of  Russia's  Foreign  Policy — Racially  the  Russians,  as 
Shown  by  their  History,  are  Peace-Loving  —  The  Old 
Russian  Party  and  its  Survival  to  this  Present  Day — The 
Warning  of  a  Great  Russian  Statesman  Unheeded — The 
Russian  Masses  L,ook  upon  the  Wars  with  Turkey  as  Mod- 
ern Crusades — Strange  Part  Played  by  the  Cossacks  in  the 
Formation  of  this  Sentiment — The  Latest  War  with 
Turkey,  and  after 

THE  growth  of  Russia  has  proceeded  on  lines  some- 
what similar  to  those  followed  in  the  development 
of  the  United  States.  The  causes,  too,  underlying  the 
rapid  expansion  show  a  close  similarity.  Looking  at 
the  map  of  the  world  and  seeing  the  enormous  territory 


2  Russia 

over  which  the  Russian  flag  now  flies,  it  seems  a  re- 
markable fact  that  but  a  few  short  centuries  ago  this 
boundless  Russia  was  a  conglomeration  of  small  states 
mutually  independent  of  each  other  and  jointly  occupy- 
ing a  land  in  extent  of  territory  even  below  France  of 
to-day. 

Indeed  there  was  a  time  when  Russia  was  split  up 
into  more  than  seventy  small  states,  each  governed  by 
its  own  ruler.  In  more  than  one  respect  this  was  the 
happiest  time  the  Russian  people  have  ever  known. 
But  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Moscow  had 
destroyed  the  power  of  nearly  every  one  of  its  weaker 
fellow-states,  and  had  either  established  suzerainty  over 
them,  or  had  incorporated  them,  or  had  made  them  de- 
pendent on  her.  A  century  later,  Peter  I.  arose  and 
devoted  his  life  to  the  extraordinary  experiment  of 
transmuting  a  Muscovite  State,  Asiatic  and  wholly  de- 
void of  a  culture  of  its  own,  into  a  semi-European  Em- 
pire of  Russia.  He  transferred  the  political  centre  to 
his  new  seat  of  government,  St.  Petersburg,  far  to  the 
north  and  lying  in  a  morass,  but  affording  him  the 
much-coveted  ' '  little  window  looking  upon  Europe. ' ' 

Two  centuries  have  elapsed,  and  an  enormous  empire 
is  now  under  the  sway  of  the  White  Czar's  sceptre,  an 
empire  welded  together  more  or  less  firmly  out  of  the 
fragments  that  had  skirted  Russia  proper,  assimilating 
more  or  less  successfully  innumerable  hordes  and  tribes, 
all  of  them  more  barbarous  and  possessing  less  cohesive 
power  than  the  old  Russian  communities.     Territorial 


Russian  Expansion  3 

accretions  have  come  to  Russia  very  much  in  the  same 
way  in  which  they  came  to  the  United  States.  With 
the  exception  of  her  systematic  strife  with  Turkey  and, 
under  Peter  I.,  with  the  Sweden  of  Charles  XII.,  Rus- 
sia had  no  able-bodied  foe  to  contend  with  in  her  in- 
stinctive spread  towards  the  East  and  North.  True, 
Russia  obtained  her  mihtary  schooling  in  these  Turkish 
and  Swedish  wars,  and  it  was  by  means  of  these  wars 
that  she  imposed  upon  Europe  the  keen  perception  that 
a  new  power  had  arisen  on  the  vast  Sarmatian  plain 
which  needs  must  be  reckoned  with.  But  the  acquisi- 
tions themselves  secured  from  Turkey  and  Sweden 
were  insignificant  in  point  of  size  and  natural  wealth 
compared  with  those  which  Russia  obtained  almost 
without  a  stroke  of  the  sword,  largely  by  the  force  of 
attrition  which  a  centralised  and  homogeneous  larger 
nation  exerts  far  beyond  its  frontiers  upon  smaller  and 
ill-organised  political  entities. 

And  that  brings  to  mind  the  fact  that  Russia's  ex- 
pansion policy,  particularly  in  its  earlier  stages,  up  to 
about  1850,  has  by  no  means  been  the  result  of  such 
rare  astuteness  and  so  clearly  recognised  a  system  as 
that  for  which  the  world  has  given  her  credit.  Indeed, 
Russia  has  but  followed  in  a  half-conscious  way  the 
Drang  nach  Osten  of  vi^hich  we  have  heard  so  much  of 
late  years.  Ever  beyond  her  borders  were  lands  and 
peoples  that  stood  in  her  way,  restless  barbarians  who 
delighted  in  plundering  the  Russian  settlers  and  who 
had  to  be  brought  under  the  iron  yoke  of  the  lyittle 


4  Russia 

Father  in  St.  Petersburg  in  order  to  be  taught  respect 
for  their  neighbours'  property. 

The  aggrandisement  of  Russia  has  thus  proceeded  at 
a  rate  not  even  equalled  by  the  United  States.  The 
growth  of  Russia  since  1500  and  up  to  1900  has  been 
phenomenal.  During  the  last  century,  the  movement 
has  retarded  somewhat,  but  in  1894,  at  the  accession 
of  the  present  ruler,  Nicholas  II.,  Russia  had  attained 
to  a  compact  body  of  about  nine  million  square  miles, 
and  even  the  loss  of  Alaska,  with  its  400,000  square 
miles,  did  not  weigh  much  in  the  balance.  Even  then, 
however,  her  expansion  did  not  cease,  as  is  shown  by 
the  history  of  events  in  the  Amoor  and  Ussuri  regions, 
and  later  still,  in  Manchuria.  All  this,  it  is  quite  safe 
to  say,  had  little  to  do  with  far-sighted  statesmanship, 
with  a  well-planned  system,  and  still  less  with  mere 
diplomacy — though  it  is  precisely  Russian  diplomacy 
that  has  been  so  much  admired  in  this  connection. 
This  expansion  towards  the  East  has  rather  come,  step 
by  step,  in  the  elementary  and  resistless  manner  of  a 
natural  law.  The  fabled  testament  of  Peter  the  Great, 
even  if  it  were  believed  in,  concerned  itself  only  with 
the  conquest  of  Constantinople  and  of  that  relatively 
small  intervening  strip  of  the  Balkan  peninsula. 

Surely  the  growth  of  Russia  into  the  greatest  power 
on  earth,  territorially  considered,  is  the  most  stupendous 
achievement  in  history,  when  viewed  from  a  certain 
angle.  But  has  the  enormous  extent  of  the  country 
been  a  blessing  to  the  Russian  people?    That  is  for 


Russian  Expansion  5 

thein  the  only  test  worth  while.  For,  after  all,  states- 
manship as  we  understand  it  to-day  has  for  its  chief 
aim  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  people  whom  it 
claims  to  serve.  And  all  political  development  must 
be  reduced  to  the  one  question,  whether  it  benefits  that 
nation  whose  shoulders  and  purses  support  it.  Doubt- 
less the  glory  of  arms  and  the  power  of  dominion  belong 
to  those  things  which  a  warlike,  ambitious  nation 
prizes.  The  less  cultured  a  people  the  higher,  as  a 
rule,  it  prizes  these  things.  At  the  dawn  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  at  the  period  of  race  migrations,  warlike  fame 
was  deemed  the  highest  good.  The  Huns  of  Attila  and 
the  Mongolians  of  Djinghis  Khan  were  without  ques- 
tion high  in  their  praises  of  these  rulers,  who  forever 
lead  them  on  to  new  conquests,  pillage,  and  slaughter. 
But  to-day  we  apply  a  different  measure.  We  do  not 
underrate  martial  fame  and  increased  dominion,  but  we 
no  longer  value  them  in  themselves:  we  esteem  them 
only  in  so  far  as  they  are  connected  with  our  civilisa- 
tory  missions,  so  far  as  they  furnish  us  with  the  means 
to  strengthen  us  materially  and  spiritually,  so  far  as 
they  enable  us  to  mature  morally  and  to  promote  our 
ideals  in  life. 

The  welfare  of  a  people  demands  not  only  external 
power  and  glory,  but  in  a  much  greater  degree  all  those 
factors  which  make  for  peaceful  internal  culture  and 
civilisation,  for  a  higher  standard  of  life.  Nay,  more, 
war  and  conquest  have  sunk  so  low  in  our  scale  that 
they  are  regarded  to-day  as  evils,  only  to  be  applied  in 


6  Russia 

case  of  extremest  need  or  for  the  sake  of  our  most 
cherished  boons. 

When  considered  in  this  way,  the  growth  of  Russia 
presents  a  startling  anomaly.  Without  culture  of  its 
own,  this  new  power,  from  the  start,  faced  civilised 
Europe  with  the  claim  of  equality.  Peter  the  Great 
had  left  his  dominions  in  a  state  of  horrible  confusion 
and  exhaustion,  but  at  least  his  purpose  had  been  to 
develop  the  slumbering  forces  of  his  subjects  in  the  di- 
rection of  civilisation.  His  successors  abandoned  the 
work  which  he  had  begun.  For  a  century  and  more, 
nothing  was  done  in  the  way  of  bringing  the  Russian 
people  up  to  a  higher  level.  Catherine  II.,  brilliant  as 
her  reign  was  outwardly,  did  very  little  for  the  welfare 
of  her  people.  Since  Peter's  time  it  has  been  a  cease- 
less course  of  experimenting  in  administration  and 
legislation:  here  something  was  introduced,  there 
something  abolished,  without  system  or  plan,  as  the 
humour  took  each  ruler,  without  patience  or  special 
knowledge.  A  century  after  the  first  appearance  of 
the  great  reformer,  Russia  had  indeed  developed  into  a 
tremendous  European  power,  inspiring  fear  where  she 
did  not  command  respect,  but  internally  she  had 
scarcely  progressed  on  the  road  of  material  and  intel- 
lectual growth.  The  word  of  Napoleon  I.,  Grattez  le 
Russe  et  vous  trouverez  le  Tartare,^  was  literally  true, 
and,  moreover,  is  true  to-day.  It  was  and  is  the  make- 
believe,  the  sham,  by  which  Russia  has  maintained  her 
'  "  Scratch  the  Russian  and  you  will  find  the  Tartar." 


Russian  Expansion  7 

prestige  towards  the  outer  world.  In  the  interior 
remains  the  old  misery,  the  beggarly  poverty,  the 
corruption,  the  ignorance,  the  formal  observance  of 
Church  dogma,  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  bureaucracy. 
Three  things  only  had  been  attained — a  brilliant  court, 
a  large  army,  and  the  total  subjection  of  every  class  of 
the  people. 

These  three  things  were  necessary  to  enable  Russia 
to  play  the  role  of  a  great  power,  and  this  was  the  one 
aim  which  since  Peter's  time  every  Russian  ruler  has 
striven  for.  There  was  a  shining  court  to  give  relief  to 
the  new-born  empire;  a  gigantic  army  to  conquer  new 
territory  and  to  give  weight  to  Russia's  voice  in  the 
councils  of  Europe;  the  compulsory  service  of  the  no- 
bility, the  shackling  of  the  townspeople  within  the  con- 
fines of  their  town,  the  serfdom  of  the  peasant, —  all 
intended  to  strengthen  the  power  of  autocracy  merely 
to  have  a  sufficiency  of  officials,  soldiers,  and  money. 
And  for  this  sham  glory,  for  external  power,  the  weak 
forces  of  the  nation  at  home  were  exploited  pitilessly. 
This  is  the  system  which  has  survived  in  Russia  to  this 
present  day. 

Warlike  ardor  and  craving  for  political  power  are  by 
no  means  characteristic  traits  of  the  Russian  people. 
When  the  Norman  vikings  established  their  power  over 
the  Russian  hordes  they  met  with  very  little  resistance 
on  the  part  of  the  Slavic  tribes;  though  small  in  num- 
ber, they  conquered  the  latter,  more  than  a  hundred 
times  their  numerical  strength,  with  as  much  ease  as 


8  Russia 

Britons  many  centuries  later  conquered  the  innumerable 
hosts  in  India,  And  all  through  the  period  of  Varan- 
gian power  they  found  it  much  more  difficult  to  bring 
the  Turkish  and  Mongolian  tribes,  such  as  the  Polovzi, 
Petchenegians,  and  Khazars,  under  their  sway,  than 
the  Muscovites  proper.  The  resistance,  too,  of  the 
Russians  to  the  Mongolian  irruption  in  the  thirteenth 
century  was  curiously  feeble.  There  is,  in  fact,  every 
evidence  to  show  that  the  Russian,  individually  and 
collectively,  is  not  made  of  that  stern  stuff  out  of  which 
is  fashioned  the  conqueror.  Not  the  Slavic  peoples  of 
the  Russia  of  to-day  were  warlike  and  greedy  of  power, 
but  only  the  Norman  rulers  over  them.  This  remained 
true  even  after  the  time  when  but  the  Prince  of  Mus- 
covy was  left  as  sole  autocrat.  And  with  the  extinc- 
tion of  this  Muscovite  dynasty  of  Norman  adventurers, 
the  love  of  war  and  conquest  died  down.  The  great 
struggle  during  the  whole  seventeenth  century  between 
Poland  and  Muscovy  was  due  to  the  former;  Poland 
was  ever  the  aggressor  during  that  long  period,  and  the 
dash  and  valour  of  that  branch  of  the  Slavic  race  were 
by  no  means  equalled  by  the  Russians.  It  is  a  well- 
known  fact  that  even  to-day  the  best  soldiers  in  Russia's 
immense  army  come  from  the  plain  of  the  Vistula  and 
have  Polish  blood  in  their  veins.  The  brain,  too,  in 
the  Russian  army  is  either  Teutonic  (from  the  Baltic 
German  provinces)  or  Polish.  By  far  the  best  portion 
of  the  Russian  cavalry  is  non-Russian  in  blood — Cau- 
casian, Cossack,  and  Polish  uhlans.     The  Russian  ar- 


Russian  Expansion  9 

tillery  and  engineer  corps  are  both  creations  of  non- 
Russians. 

It  was  not  until  Peter  the  Great,  the  only  really 
original-minded  ruler  whom  Russia  has  had  for  four 
hundred  years,  had  established  himself  on  the  throne 
that  the  sword  of  the  conqueror  once  more  flashed  from 
the  scabbard,  but  even  the  wars  in  which  he  engaged 
were  undertaken  in  entire  dissonance  with  popular 
wishes.  Prince  Alexis,  Peter's  unfortunate  son,  was 
beheaded  by  his  own  father  because  he  strenuously 
opposed  Peter's  far-seeing  policy.  The  Old  Russian 
party,  at  the  head  of  which  Prince  Alexis  had  faced  his 
father,  was  all  in  favour  of  renouncing  war  and  con- 
quest. This  party,  entirely  representative  of  the  na- 
tion, hated  with  an  angry  hatred  the  new  Russia  of 
Peter's  making;  its  leaders  and  spokesmen  desired  to 
restore  the  conquered  countries  to  their  former  owners;  • 
they  wanted  to  destroy  the  new  empire,  in  order  to  re- 
vert to  Old  Muscovy  with  its  Asiatic  repose  and  man- 
ners. Alexis  and  many  others  with  him  suffered  death 
at  the  hands  of  the  great  Peter,  but  the  thought  for 
which  they  had  lived  and  died  did  not  disappear  with 
them.  This  thought  has  remained  strong  in  Russia  to 
this  day.  It  has  cropped  out  at  every  critical  point  in 
the  Russian  history  of  the  last  two  hundred  years,  the 
thought  to  turn  definitely  from  Europe  and  to  re-estab- 
lish in  Moscow  the  old  national  comfort  and  quiet,  avoid- 
ing interference  with  European  countries  and  affairs, 
avoiding  war,  and  lightening  the  burden  of  taxes. 


lo  Russia 

These  were  the  aims  of  such  Russian  statesmen  and 
popular  mouthpieces  as  the  Princes  Golizyne  and  Dol- 
gorouky  under  Peter  II.  and  Anna.  The  attempt  made 
to  place  barriers  against  Anna's  autocracy  was  in  con- 
formity with  the  party  of  Alexis;  the  conspirators  of 
those  days  hoped  to  attain  their  ends  by  raising  Eliza- 
beth to  the  throne.  Every  indication  we  possess  of 
those  troubled  days  points  to  the  fact  that  the  Russian 
nobility  and  people  were  in  entire  harmony  with  such  a 
programme.  The  leading  representative  men  of  Russia 
continued  in  their  opposition  to  the  policy  of  Peter  the 
Great  and  his  disciples,  the  Ostermanns,  Muennichs, 
Bestousheffs,  and  their  faces  were  firmly  set  against 
wars  of  conquest  with  the  Turks,  Swedes,  and  Persians. 
They  were  strongly  opposed  to  Russian  interference 
with  Frederick  the  Great  in  the  Seven  Years'  War,  and 
a  hundred  years  after  Peter's  death  would  have  been 
willing  to  abandon  St.  Petersburg  itself  and  to  cease 
meddling  with  European  affairs.  This  so-called  Mos- 
cow party  was  national  and  Russian  in  the  strict  sense, 
and  it  is  a  question  even  to-day  whether  the  instinct 
that  guided  them  was  not  sounder  than  were  Peter's 
great  plans.  For  the  results  of  Peter's  policy,  adhered 
to  as  it  has  been  by  the  rulers  of  Russia  ever  since,  by 
no  means  are  adequate  to  the  awful  sacrifices  which  the 
people  had  to  make  for  it.  After  a  century  of  aggran- 
disement and  conquest,  of  martial  glory  and  brilliant 
prestige,  the  conditions  in  which  the  Russian  nobility, 
clergy,  and  peasantry  were  living  had  not  improved, 


Russian  Expansion  ii 

but  had  actually  become  much  worse  than  under  the 
old  Muscovite  system. 

During  the  reign  of  Catherine  II.,  in  1789,  an  observ- 
ant French  visitor  at  the  Russian  court,  J.  B.  Scherer, 
wrote  in  a  memorial  to  the  Empress:  "  Above  all, 
Russia  must  avoid  war.  Never  will  Russia  gather  the 
fruits  of  Peter  the  Great's  efforts,  never  will  she  obtain 
a  balance  of  trade  in  her  favour,  and  never  will  she  be- 
come enlightened  and  flourishing  until  she  has  aban- 
doned her  policy  of  conquest." 

Twelve  years  later,  in  1801,  the  all-powerful  Russian 
premier,  Prince  Panine,  wrote  in  another  memorial: 
La  guerre  la  plus  heureuse  ne  peut  que  Vaffaiblir  ei 
augmenter  les  enibarras  de  son  gouvernement,  en  dissemi- 
nant  des  forces,  qui  depuis  les  dernieres  acquisitions  ne 
sont  plus  proportionnees  a  Vitendue  des  limites."^  And 
Panine  was  one  of  the  most  sharp-sighted  and  patriotic 
statesmen  whom  Russia  has  produced.  But  at  his  time, 
too,  it  was  only  at  the  court  of  the  Czar  and  its  en- 
vironment that  Russia  was  warlike  and  desirous  of 
glory.  Outside  of  St.  Petersburg  and  within  the  mass 
of  the  people,  there  was  then,  and  there  is  now,  a  deep 
longing  to  keep  aloof  from  Europe  and  to  be  free  of 
costly  military  entanglements.  And  how  could  it  be 
otherwise,    since    forty    years   of   incessant    war    had 

'  "The  most  successful  war  will  only  weaken  and  increase  the 
difficulties  of  your  Imperial  Majesty's  government,  in  scatter- 
ing those  forces  which  since  our  latest  acquisitions  are  uo 
longer  proportioned  to  the  extent  of  our  dominions." 


12  Russia 

plunged  the  country  into  incredible  internal  disorder 
and  fearful  poverty!  That  was  the  time  when  the 
"  divine  "  Catherine  died. 

But  the  Emperor  Paul  was  not  warned,  for  he  con- 
tinued the  policy  of  conquest  as  his  predecessors  had 
done.  He  began  war  against  England  for  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  obtaining  the  Island  of  Malta,  he  having  been 
chosen  Grandmaster  of  the  Order.  No  serious  Russian 
interests  of  any  kind  were  involved  in  the  issues  of  that 
war.  I,ater  on,  after  the  brief  era  of  peace-loving 
Panine,  Prince  Kotshoubey  attempted  to  develop  the 
interior  resources  of  the  nation,  but  again  events  turned 
out  ver3^  differently.  Russia's  armies  spread  over  the 
whole  of  Europe.  At  the  close  of  his  life,  in  1824, 
Alexander  I.  himself  made  this  confession:  "  Of  glory 
and  honour  I  have  had  enough;  but  when  I  reflect  how 
little  has  been  done  for  the  welfare  of  the  nation,  the 
thought  weighs  on  my  heart  like  a  lump  of  ten  pood. ' ' ' 

During  the  reign  of  Alexander  I.  we  see  for  the  first 
time  a  counter-current.  Groups  of  his  oSicials  and 
army  officers  were  conspiring  for  the  attainment  of  freer 
forms  of  government.  But  this  desire  had  not  been 
born  on  Russian  soil;  these  men  had  acquired,  by  prac- 
tical contact  with  conditions  in  European  countries,  an 
admiration  for  the  latter.  Among  the  people  them- 
selves the  burdens  brought  about  by  the  Napoleonic 
campaigns  were  accepted  like  decrees  of  fate.  It  was 
the  French  invasion  of  18 12  and  the  burning  of  Moscow 
'  A  pood,  Russian  weight,  about  forty  pounds. 


Russian  Expansion  13 

which  had  wakened  the  stolid  Russian  soul.  But  the 
point  of  view  taken  by  the  masses  was  a  curious  one : 
Religious  considerations  dominated.  Not  one  of  the 
endless  wars  of  the  eighteenth  century  had  had  a  deeper 
effect;  this  one  against  Napoleon  stirred  the  masses. 
When  they  saw  "  the  Gauls  with  their  twenty  allied 
nations ' '  fleeing  across  the  frontiers,  they  had  the  sen- 
sation as  if  all  the  foreign  ideas  and  ways  which  they 
hated  so  cordially  went  with  them,  leaving  them  once 
more  complete  masters  of  their  own.  To  this  day,  at 
Christmastide,  a  prayer  of  thanks  is  offered  up  in  all 
the  Russian  churches  and  chapels  for  the  "driving- 
out"  of  the  Napoleonic  hosts.  To  the  low-class  Rus- 
sians these  hosts  had  not  seemed  a  French  army,  but 
rather  the  entirety  of  Europe,  of  a  foreign  country 
which  for  two  hundred  years  had  been  attempting  to 
force  its  modes  of  thought  and  action  upon  the  Ortho- 
dox Russian.  For  to  the  uneducated  Russian,  and 
even  to  many  of  the  better-educated  ones,  the  European 
is,  like  the  Tartar  and  Turk,  an  "Unchristian,"  an 
Antichrist,  a  hereditary  foe  of  his  nation  and  creed. 

This  hereditary  enmity  towards  Tartars  and  Turks, 
a  settled  feeling  in  the  soul  of  the  Russian,  has  been,  up 
to  the  present  day,  a  very  important  factor  in  Russia's 
external  policy.  After  shaking  off,  towards  the  end  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  humiliating  remnants  of  the 
ancient  Tartar  yoke,  the  strife  revived  with  the  khan- 
ates in  the  South  and  South-east.  The  Cossacks  on 
the  Dniepr  and  Don  with  their  constant  raids  became 


14  Russia 

national  heroes.  In  the  free  settlements  upon  the  Don, 
in  the  Ssetche,  and  in  the  Cossack  camps  of  the  lower 
Dniepr,  there  was  real  warlike  ardour;  for  the  Cos- 
sacks were  animated  in  their  guerilla  warfare  not  only 
by  the  love  of  plunder  but  in  like  measure  by  the  thirst 
of  glory.  And  these  Cossacks,  while  battling  with  the 
Tartars  of  the  Crimea,  and  the  Turks,  frequently,  too, 
with  the  Russians  and  Poles,  developed  into  a  people 
of  Spartan  virtues,  a  people  with  a  pronounced  love  of 
liberty,  unique  in  this  respect  in  the  whole  of  Russia. 

True,  their  former  liberties,  their  independence  of 
every  other  power  save  that  of  their  self-chosen  heiman, 
were  lost  after  a  while.  During  the  seventeenth  cent- 
ury, the  Cossacks,  little  by  little,  were  made  to  bow 
to  Polish  and  Russian  power.  The  left  shore  of  the 
Dniepr,  and  later  on  Kiefi  itself,  became  Russian,  and 
next  Peter  the  Great  stormed  on,  and  after  the  battle 
of  Poltava  and  the  death  of  Mazeppa  it  was  all  over 
with  Cossack  freedom.  By  hook  or  crook  their  liber- 
ties were  curtailed  and  their  resistance  broken.  Cather- 
ine II.  subjected  the  eastern  settlements,  and  from  that 
hour  on  there  existed  no  more  free  Cossacks.  But  the 
tradition  of  Cossack  warfare  against  the  unbelievers 
survived  all  over  Russia,  and  since  Peter  I.'s  days,  this 
tradition  became  a  strong  aid  to  the  czars  in  all  their 
hostile  undertakings  against  the  Tartars  and  Turks. 
After  the  Tartars  had  been  completely  overpowered 
during  Catherine  s  reign,  this  tradition  spent  its  force 
against  the  Turks.     This,  however,  was  systematically 


Russian  Expansion  15 

furthered  by  the  autocratic  government  at  the  capital 
city.  There  were  times  when  even  this  tradition, 
really  the  only  one  that  has  ever  spurred  on  the  Rus- 
sian masses  to  bold  enterprise,  became  lifeless.  That 
was  the  case,  for  instance,  in  the  reign  of  Anna.  The 
campaigns  of  her  ambitious  premier,  Muennich,  de- 
manded such  horrible  sacrifices  in  blood  and  money,  in 
taxes  and  spoliation,  that  the  Russian  people  would 
gladly  have  accepted  the  total  defeat  of  their  army  if 
therewith  they  could  have  purchased  permanent  peace. 
For  they  felt  that  these  sacrifices  were  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  the  possible  gains  to  the  nation. 

And  in  anj^  event  it  was  only  during  the  reign  of 
Catherine,  especially  since  her  Turkish  war  of  1792, 
that  this  semi-religious  sentiment  took  on  the  form  of 
something  resembling  a  settled  national  policy.  Only 
since  then  dates  the  conscious  effort  of  Russia  to  acquire 
possession  of  Constantinople,  to  drive  the  Turks  from 
Europe,  and  to  erect  a  new  Russian  Czardom  on  the 
Bosphorus.  The  Orthodox  Church  in  Russia  became 
the  artful  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  Czar  in  this 
matter.  With  its  help,  the  popular  tradition  originally 
directed  against  the  Tartars  became  the  self-imposed 
sacred  charge  to  win  back  Byzantium  for  the  Orthodox 
Church,  and  to  liberate  the  Slavic  brother  populations 
on  the  Balkan  peninsula  from  the  galling  yoke  of  the 
unbelievers. 

This  naive,  almost  childlike,  but  nevertheless  very 
potent  sentiment  of  the  Russian  masses,  combining,  in 


i6  Russia 

an  extraordinary  manner,  dimly  felt  religious  preju- 
dices with  a  concrete  ideal  of  unequalled  glory  and 
power,  has  been  manipulated  for  a  century  past  with  a 
skill  rarely  if  ever  exhibited  by  any  government  work- 
ing for  purely  selfish  purposes.  The  mysticism  form- 
ing an  integral  part  of  every  normal  Russian  has  been 
used  as  a  catspaw  by  autocracy  to  inflame  the  flickering 
spirit  of  patriotism,  and  our  own  time  has  seen  a  mar- 
vellous illustration  of  this  in  the  year  1876.  At  that 
time  the  anti-Turkish  sentiment,  nourished  for  decades 
by  such  leaders  of  Panslavic  thought  as  Katkofi"  (the 
all-powerful  editor  of  the  Moscow  Gazette),  Ignatiefif, 
and  General  SkobeleflF,  literally  carried  the  Emperor 
Alexander  II.  off  his  feet.  He  was  no  longer  the  driver, 
but  the  driven,  and  though  nominally  the  autocrat  of 
all  the  Russias,  he  practically  became  the  helpless  in- 
strument of  his  clergy  and  subjects  in  engaging  in  one 
of  the  bloodiest  wars  of  the  century,  a  war  which  en- 
tailed untold  misery  and  gigantic  expense  on  the  pov- 
erty-stricken masses  of  Russia  herself,  without  in  the 
end  securing  for  Russia  even  a  part  of  its  intended 
prey. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  other  important  events 
had  intervened.  Russia's  war  with  Turkey  in  1828, 
as  well  as  the  Crimean  War,  resulted  from  the  striving 
of  her  rulers  to  secure  a  pre-eminent  position  of  power 
in  the  councils  of  Europe.  There  were  no  real  Russian 
interests  at  stake  at  the  outbreak  of  either  of  these  ter- 
rific struggles.     Only  Russian  prestige  was  in  danger, 


Russian  Expansion  17 

and  even  of  that  only  the  prestige  in  the  Balkan  and  in 
Greece.  Russia's  campaign  in  1849  against  the  rebel- 
lious Hungarians  was  without  a  shadow  of  provocation, 
and  the  despotic  whim  of  Nicholas  I.  was  its  only 
justification. 

The  century  was  drawing  towards  its  close  when 
Russia  for  the  first  and  only  time  drew  the  sword  for 
the  safeguarding  of  important  and  tangible  interests. 
And  the  twentieth  century  had  opened  when,  at  the 
Boxer  risings  in  China,  she  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder 
with  the  other  great  powers  of  the  world,  though  again 
isolated  from  them  both  by  material  and  moral  consid- 
erations. Out  of  that  conflict  indirectly  grew  the  war 
with  Japan. 


CHAPTER  II 

RUSSIA  AS  A  WORLD  POWER 

The  Claims  of  Russia  Rest  Solely  on  her  Enormous  Size — 
What  Russia  has  Done  and  L,eft  Undone  in  Developing  her 
Asiatic  Possessions — The  Muscovite  as  a  Coloniser — Pro- 
spective Prosperity  of  Transcaucasia,  Turkestan,  and  South- 
western Siberia— Foreign  Enterprise  There — Grumblings 
of  the  Russian  Press — Russia  Distinctively  an  Asiatic  and 
not  a  European  Power — A  Parallel  between  Russian  and 
English  Colonising  Methods,  Showing  a  Striking  Contrast 
—The  Paucity  of  Native  Capital— The  Role  which  the 
Cossack  has  Played — Russia's  Part  in  Far  Asia — It  Involves 
a  Large  Increase  in  her  National  Expenditures  —  The 
Problem  of  Manchuria — The  Russian  Meets  the  Chinaman 
— Economic  Superiority  of  the  Latter — Prince  Ukhtomski's 
Opinion — Russia's  Present  Expansion  Policy  Far  Exceed- 
ing her  Legitimate  Needs  —  Her  Far  Asiatic  Possessions 
the  Most  Unprofitable  of  All — Her  Proper  "Interest 
Sphere" — The  Question  of  Russian  Ascendancy  within 
the  Empire — A  Summary 

BY  the  sheer  reason  of  her  bulk  Russia  is  accounted 
one  of  the  greatest  World  Powers.  In  point  of 
compactness  she  even  exceeds  the  United  States,  at 
least  since  the  American  acquisition  of  the  Philippines 
and  other  outlying  possessions.  Her  extension  east 
and  west  far  exceeds  that  of  any  other  country,  and 
north  to  south  she  stretches  from  the  eternal  ice  of 
Spitzbergen  and  Nova  Zembla  to  almost  subtropical 

i8 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  19 

climes.  The  mean  temperature  of  her  southern  shores 
along  the  Black  Sea  is  higher  than  that  of  Rome  or 
Madrid,  and  in  Khiva  and  Bokhara  the  summers  ap- 
proach those  of  India  in  heat.  Cotton  grows  along  her 
southern  borders,  and  the  fruit  of  her  Crimean  pen- 
insula rivals  in  flavour  and  size  that  of  our  own  Cali- 
fornia. Enormous  wastes  in  Eastern  and  Northern 
Siberia,  the  ill-famed  tundras,  are  offset  by  vast  tracts 
of  land  so  fertile  that  they  vie  in  their  productivity  with 
the  most  favoured  regions  of  earth.  In  natural  wealth 
of  every  description,  including  metals,  both  precious 
and  useful,  and  coal,  she  is  only  exceeded  by  the 
United  States.  She  is  well  favoured  in  rivers  and 
lakes,  and  her  climate  is,  on  the  whole,  salubrious  and 
invigorating.  True,  Russia  presents  in  nowise  the 
limitless  resources  of  the  British  colonial  empire,  nor 
does  she  approach  the  United  States  in  the  matter  of 
ocean  facilities.  But,  after  all,  it  is  undeniable  that, 
so  far  as  nature  has  equipped  her,  she  rightfully  ranks 
with  the  greatest  powers  of  this  sphere. 

In  Russia  itself  one  often  hears  the  opinion  expressed 
that  the  country  is  large  enough  to  do  without  colo- 
nies. But  if  she  has  no  transoceanic  colonies,  she  is 
nevertheless,  by  reason  of  her  Asiatic  possessions,  the 
largest  colonial  empire.  Enormous  as  these  are  in  size, 
they  are  very  thinly  populated,  and  for  the  mother 
country  they  bear  much  more  the  colonial  character 
than  does  India  for  England.  In  Siberia,  itself  as  large 
as  a  continent,  everything  has  yet  to  be  done  to  give  it 


20  Russia 

population  and  civilisation.  In  Central  Asia,  nearly 
all  remains  undone.  Boundless  tracts  are  awaiting  the 
plough,  enormous  mineral  wealth  the  miner. 

Since  railroads  have  at  last  begun  to  be  built  with 
borrowed  capital,  these  Asiatic  possessions  are  much 
nearer  to  Russia  proper.  They  now  begin  to  exert  a 
strong  charm  upon  the  speculative  spirit  and  the  enter- 
prise of  both  government  and  nation.  For  fifty  years, 
more  or  less,  the  central  government  has  striven  hard 
and  with  considerable  success  to  create  some  order  and 
security  in  the  lands  of  Central  Asia.  Formerly  nomad 
robber  hordes  despoiled  the  traveller  and  made  all  civ- 
ilisation impossible.  Despotic  khans  ruled  their  trem- 
bling subjects  with  a  rod  of  iron,  devastating  their  own 
dominions  for  the  mere  devilish  pleasure  of  it,  and  tor- 
turing or  decapitating  thousands  without  the  shadow 
of  law. 

To-day  the  merchant,  the  mechanic,  the  colonist, 
and  the  official  travel  swiftly  and  peacefully  with  the 
Russian  mail  coach  or  sledge,  by  railroad  or  steamer, 
in  full  security  of  person  and  property.  Even  in  the 
days  when  the  great  Tamerlane  was  reigning,  days 
the  fabled  splendour  of  which  is  still  on  everybody's 
lips  in  those  regions,  there  was  no  such  degree  of  quiet 
and  well-policed  order  as  there  is  to-day.  Commerce 
increases,  Russian  immigration  grows,  and  a  substan- 
tial colonisation  has  taken  root,  even  if  for  the  time  be- 
ing the  tchinovnik  (Russian  government  official)  and 
soldier  still  predominate. 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  21 

Undeniably  the  Russian  has  certain  fine  qualifica- 
tions for  a  coloniser.  In  his  own  sphere  and  for  the 
particular  needs  of  the  case  he  is  unexcelled  in  that  ca- 
pacity. Where  he  meets  a  native  population  of  lower 
civilisation,  he  understands  well  how  to  harmonise  with 
it;  he  does  not  wantonly  oppress  or  harass  it.  He  is 
regarded  by  the  natives  as  the  bringer  of  order  and 
civilisation.  In  comparison  with  their  former  masters, 
he  is  a  beneficent  ruler.  He  leaves  his  Russian  caste 
spirit  at  home,  and  he  is  indulgent  and  more  than 
good-natured  in  overlooking  the  crotchets  and  foibles 
of  the  natives.  The  essence  of  good-fellowship  is 
strong  within  his  bosom.  As  long  as  his  own  govern- 
ment does  not  say  the  word,  he  shows  scarcely  any  of 
that  missionary  zeal  which  distinguishes  the  Briton  and 
American.  He  is  free  from  that  curious  itching  which 
characterises  the  German  as  a  coloniser  to  bring  every- 
thing within  the  rules  of  military  precision.  It  will 
never  enter  his  mind  to  engage  in  a  campaign  of  nation- 
alistic or  religious  proselytising  as  long  as  the  Little 
Father  in  St.  Petersburg  has  not  formally  ordered  him 
to  do  so.  Here,  then,  are  the  elements  of  sound  and 
useful  colonisation. 

In  the  year  1900,  twenty-eight  societies  were  busy 
getting  petroleum  and  naphtha  out  of  the  soil  of  Trans- 
caucasia, and  they  were  paying  dividends  as  high  as 
sixty  per  cent.  In  the  rich  province  of  Fergana  have 
recently  been  discovered  enormous  oil  wells  below  the 
fertile  earth.     Cotton  culture  has  made  such  progress 


22  Russia 

that  it  furnished  in  the  year  mentioned  some  7,638,200 
pood  (or  nearly  12,000  tons);  even  the  poor  harvest  of 
1 90 1  fetched  about  5)^  miUion  pood.  Even  at  this 
early  day  Russia  can  count  on  Fergana  and  her  other 
colonies  in  Central  Asia  for  about  one- half  of  her  raw 
cotton.  The  gold  mines  of  Siberia  furnish  about  forty 
millions  of  roubles  in  gold.  That  industry  lies  in  the 
hands  of  the  government,  but  otherwise  the  economic 
exploitation  of  Russian  Asia  at  present  is  mainly  con- 
fided to  foreign  capital,  and  to  a  large  extent  even  to 
foreign  managers,  engineers,  and  mechanics.  Thus, 
for  instance,  the  very  butter  which  to-day  is  brought 
down  in  weekly  train-loads  from  Siberia  to  the  Baltic 
harbours,  and  thence  transshipped  to  England  and 
elsewhere,  is  produced  by  Danish  dairymen.  But  in 
any  event  part  of  the  gain  remains  in  Russia,  and  the 
fiscus  draws  sure  and  large  profit  from  the  rapid  de- 
velopment of  those  provinces.  This,  of  course,  is  said 
irrespective  of  the  fact  that  it  is  this  very  fiscus  which 
has  loaded  itself  with  an  enormous  burden  of  debt 
and  constant  expenditure  in  the  matter  of  building  and 
operating  the  new  railroads,  above  all,  the  Siberian 
Railroad.  These  railroads,  all  of  them,  even  the  pro- 
jected one  to  Tashkend  and  Bokhara,  are  worked  and 
will  continue  to  be  worked  for  many  years  to  come  at 
a  large  loss,  so  that  the  interest  charge  on  them,  going 
as  it  does  to  foreign  pockets,  will  remain  a  serious 
drawback. 

But  the  forty  millions  of  gold,  after  deducting  the  in- 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  23 

considerable  expenses  of  production,  flow  into  the 
national  treasury.  Petroleum  figured  in  the  budget  of 
1901  with  a  collected  tax  of  twenty-six  millions,  and 
for  1902  of  twenty-seven  millions.  The  exportation  of 
wheat,  butter,  and  frozen  meat  from  Siberia  helps  to 
swell  the  balance  of  trade  in  Russia's  favour.  With 
that  the  central  government  makes  great  efibrts  in 
furthering  the  output  of  these  colonial  lands.  In  fact, 
many  voices  are  being  raised  throughout  the  mother 
country  against  this  policy,  charging  the  government 
with  favouring  these  border  districts  at  the  expense  of 
Russia  proper.  An  authority  in  national  economics, 
M.  Golovine,  recently  wrote  in  the  Rossya:  "  We  may 
be  sure  that  on  the  part  of  our  government  the  more  is 
done  in  the  way  of  awakening  economic  life  in  a  dis- 
trict, the  more  distant  from  the  centre  it  is  and  the 
feebler  and  the  more  neglected  by  nature.  It  is  really 
time  to  think  at  last  of  the  centre  of  Russia." 

Only  thirty  or  forty  years  ago  Russia  took  pride  in 
pretending  to  be  a  European  civilised  state.  To-day, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  opinion  begins  to  prevail  of 
those  who  feel  themselves  as  a  pushing  and  most  im- 
portant Asiatic  or  semi-Asiatic  power.  Certainly  there 
has  come  a  great  change  in  this  respect.  And  indeed 
there  is  more  reason  for  Russia  to  feel  pride  as  an 
Asiatic  rather  than  a  European  power.  On  the  one 
side  there  has  been  a  fruitless  though  constant  effort 
made  by  Russia  to  advance  in  a  westerly  direction,  both 
by  conquest  and  by  adapting  her  civilisation.     These 


24  Russia 

eflforts  have  cost  Russia,  as  shown  in  another  chapter, 
untold  millions  and  internal  prosperity;  yet  they  have 
not  availed  her  a  jot.  On  the  other  hand,  she  has 
doubtless  conquered  for  herself  a  formidable  place  by 
advancing  in  an  easterly  and  southerly  direction.  Her 
acquisition  of  the  Caucasus  unlocked  a  new  world  for 
Russian  expansion.  As  a  colonising  venture  the  Cau- 
casus has  been  the  most  successful  of  all.  Behind  the 
Russian  soldier  came  the  Russian  tchinovnik,  and  be- 
hind the  latter,  again,  the  merchant  from  Russia  pene- 
trated Asia  Minor  and  Central  Asia,  while  the  Russian 
peasant  followed  in  the  rear  as  the  most  effective  instru- 
ment of  Russification. 

The  forces  which  animate  nations  to  engage  in  an 
expansive  policy  are  diverse.  They  may  proceed  from 
the  greed  for  power,  from  the  ambition  of  great  con- 
querors, and  in  that  case  they  soon  subside,  usually  at 
the  death  of  the  conqueror  himself.  But  they  may  also 
proceed  from  the  accumulated  excess  of  energy  and 
culture  within  a  nation,  and  in  that  case  they  are  apt 
to  be  permanent  in  their  effects.  The  policy  of  Tam- 
erlane is  in  full  contrast  to  that  of  great  and  successful 
colonising  commonwealths.  Empires  founded  merely 
on  the  strength  of  warlike  superiority  have  soon  gone 
to  pieces.  But  Rome  has  dominated  the  world  for 
long,  not  only  through  her  generals  but  in  larger  meas- 
ure by  the  strength  of  her  civilisation.  England's 
expansive  policy  began  with  the  protection  of  those  of 
her  children  who  left  the  native  shore  for  a  freer  ex- 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  25 

ercise  of  their  adventurous  spirit,  and  since  then  Eng- 
land's flag  has  always  followed  her  merchant  vessels 
and  her  emigrants,  both  being  the  popular  bearers  of 
her  peculiar  civilisation.  England's  policy  in  this  re- 
spect is  held  a  model,  and  no  less  an  authority  than 
Bismarck  advised  Germany  to  follow  in  Britain's  foot- 
steps. Whenever  England  departed  from  this  policy, 
when  she,  too,  relied  solely  on  military  prowess  to 
found  colonies,  she  Hkewise  failed.  The  Transvaal  is 
an  apt  illustration  of  this.  England  colonised  with  un- 
surpassable success  in  cases  where,  as  in  Australia,  the 
peaceable  forces  of  her  civilisation  had  preceded  her. 
There  she  succeeded  without  expending  a  penny  or 
sacrificing  a  drop  of  blood. 

The  immense  material,  intellectual,  and  moral  forces 
which  Great  Britain  had  nurtured  in  excess  by  a  work 
of  centuries, — these  are  the  elements  which  have  given 
her  her  valuable  possessions  in  Australia,  in  America, 
Asia,  and  Africa.  And  all  this  to  her  undeniable 
benefit,  not  at  her  expense.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
without  this  enormous  accumulated  capital  of  culture 
England  would  have  lost  her  colonial  possessions  long 
ago,  or,  if  her  colonies  had  drained  her  unduly  in 
brain  and  pocket,  she  would  have  died  herself  from 
exhaustion. 

But  now  comes  the  case  of  Russia:  it  is  very  differ- 
ent in  kind.     Let  us  analyse  her  case  more  closely. 

When  we  reflect  that  Russia  has  built  her  railroad 
system  with  money  borrowed  from  foreigii  creditors, 


26  Russia 

and  that  she  has  paid  for  her  conquests  and  her  influ- 
ence in  Turkey,  in  Persia,  in  China,  with  loans  and  all 
sorts  of  gifts  which  had  been  withdrawn  from  the  field 
of  internal  civilisation — a  field  where  they  were  really 
much  more  needed  —  the  difference  between  her  own 
and  England's  case  becomes  at  once  very  apparent. 
Kngland  has  always  acquired  her  colonies  out  of  the 
interest  fund  of  her  civilisatory  capital,  the  interest  as 
well  in  money  as  in  men;  or  perhaps  the  surplus 
would  be  the  better  term.  With  that,  too,  she  has  de- 
veloped those  colonies.  The  home  country  went  on  in 
its  road  of  prosperity,  progressing  in  administration,  in 
social  and  economic  conditions  safely  and  conserva- 
tively despite  all  colonial  expansion.  There  was 
always  a  surplus  ready  for  each  new  acquisition  beyond 
the  seas,  and  always  there  were  funds  and  energetic 
men  of  British  home  growth  ready  to  take  hold  of  the 
new  national  enterprise.  At  no  time  did  the  govern- 
ment at  home  have  to  demand  of  the  people  burdens 
for  colonial  purposes  so  heavy  as  to  endanger  the 
mother  country  and  its  denizens. 

An  English  merchant  or  farmer  takes  with  him  to 
an  English  colonj"-  that  sturdy  independence  which  is 
needed  to  develop  that  colony  and  to  acquire  that  meas- 
ure of  material  well-being  and  of  public  order  without 
which  there  could  not  be  prosperity.  He  does  all  this 
without  asking  the  government  for  help,  being  satisfied 
to  thrive  on  his  own  account  so  long  as  the  home  au- 
thority or  its  colonial  representatives  merely  provide  a 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  27 

decent  amount  of  protection  to  life  and  property.  In- 
deed, in  not  a  few  instances  has  the  British  colonist 
managed  to  get  along  pretty  well  even  without  such 
protection.  This  aggressive  manhood  and  unconquer- 
able love  of  personal  liberty  cannot  be  replaced  by 
bureaucratic  forces,  nor  can  they  be  taught  by  official 
coaching  and  schooling.  It  is  for  that  reason  the  Eng- 
lish self-government  has  always  been,  and  is  now,  the 
best  thing  for  the  English  colonist.  The  government 
may  and  can  indeed  erect  the  external  walls  of  a  new 
national  annex  or  outbuilding,  but  the  internal  arrange- 
ments, the  inner  structure,  must  be  left  to  the  people 
themselves,  that  is,  if  the  whole  structure  is  to  be  of 
real  use  to  the  nation  as  a  whole.  Else  the  government 
indulges  in  an  expansive  policy  at  the  expense  and  to 
the  inj  ury  of  the  people. 

This  last  remark  applies  with  peculiar  force  to  the 
many  conquests  made  by  Russia  since  Peter  I.  As 
a  coloniser  Russia  has  been  most  successful  when  act- 
ing through  the  Cossacks,  that  is,  through  a  popula- 
tion, or  tribes,  made  up  of  or  descended  from  runaway 
peasants,  moujiks,  who  escaped  the  scourge  of  the  great 
Russian  taskmaster,  and  who  were  subsequently  bred 
in  a  long  school  of  individual  independence,  hardship, 
and  a  hand-to-hand  tussle  with  nature. 

The  south  of  Russia  in  particular  has  grown  and  de- 
veloped almost  entirely  without  help  from  the  state;  in 
fact,  it  has  been  acquired  by  Russia  against  the  desires 
of  those  hardy  fugitives.     Since  then  Russia  has  won 


28  Russia 

no  uew  territory  which  has  been  of  such  intrinsic  im- 
portance and  value  to  her.  And  although  these  Cos- 
sacks lost  their  liberties  one  by  one  with  the  advent  of 
Peter  the  Great  and  governmental  authority,  there  is 
still,  when  compared  with  central  Russia,  a  consider- 
able remnant  of  former  independence,  and  we  never 
hear  of  famines  or  widespread  distress  in  those  districts 
of  the  former  Cossack  repubhcs.  Indeed  it  is  with  the 
Cossacks  and  the  tchinovnik  that  Russia  has  performed, 
when  acting  in  consonance,  her  best  colonising.  It  is 
hard  to  see  on  what  other  elements  she  could  have  re- 
lied, since  the  middle  classes  are  not  numerous  enough 
in  Russia  proper  to  successfully  experiment  in  this  con- 
nection, and  since  the  peasant  of  interior  Russia  was, 
until  forty  years  ago,  bound  to  the  soil  and  the  chattel 
of  his  master.  Now,  it  is  true,  the  free  peasant  wan- 
ders, in  ever-increasing  numbers  northward  and  east- 
ward, but  he  is  no  pathbreaker,  and  his  axe  does  not 
blaze  the  way  through  the  Siberian  or  Amoor  wilder- 
ness. At  all  events  the  colonising  which  Russia  has 
done  by  means  of  the  weatherbeaten  and  liberty- loving 
Cossack,  all  through  the  South  and  the  whole  of  Siberia, 
did  not  cost  her  a  penny,  whereas  her  more  recent  ac- 
quisitions and  colonies,  up  to  her  latest  venture  in  Man- 
churia, have  cost  her  immense  sums  with  small  returns. 
Meanwhile  Russia  proceeds  on  her  dangerous  way 
of  expansion.  Her  Siberian  Railroad,  ramshackle 
affair  as  it  is  and  easily  duplicated  at  half  the  price, 
cost  her  a   clean   thousand    millions   of  roubles;    the 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  29 

Manchurian  Railroad,  the  Baikal  Road,  and  the  har- 
bours along  the  coast  have  involved  a  further  expendi- 
ture of  half  a  billion.  So  long  as  Siberia  was  left  to 
herself,  she  did  not  cost  the  Russian  taxpayer  anything 
whatever.  Now  the  new  railroad  is  scarcely  com- 
pleted, and  again  millions  upon  millions  have  been 
spent  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  on  harbours,  fortifi- 
cations, settlements,  magazines,  ice-breakers,  and  a 
multitude  of  other  things.  An  army  of  200,000  men  is 
declared  necessarj^  to  protect  these  new  acquisitions. 
The  opening  of  Eastern  Siberia,  the  construction  of  the 
harbour  improvements,  and  of  the  railroads  made  the 
doubling  of  Russia's  fleet  necessary.  Russia's  policy 
on  the  Pacific  annually  swallows  in  interest  charges 
and  new  expenditures  so  many  millions  that  even  the 
most  flourishing  trade  would  never  sufiSce  to  recoup 
herself.  This  policy  means,  one  thing  and  another,  an 
increase  in  the  Russian  budget  of  at  least  150,000,000 
roubles  yearly.  And  what  for  many  years  to  come  will 
be  the  financial  returns  of  Vladivostok,  Dalny,  Port 
Arthur,  the  whole  of  Manchuria,  the  vast  Amoor 
region,  and  the  whole  of  the  Ussuri  district  as  well  as 
the  whole  littoral  along  the  Okhotsk  Sea?  It  is  be- 
yond doubt  that  for  decades  this  enormous  part  of 
Asiatic  Russia  will  form  one  of  the  most  di.stressing 
features  of  the  Russian  budget,  requiring  one  supple- 
mentary grant  after  another.  All  conservative  Rus- 
sians are  agreed  on  this  point. 

The  tax  screw  will  have  to  be  applied  in  Russia  with 


30  Russia 

growing  rigour;  and  this  in  the  case  of  a  people  im- 
poverished to  an  incredible  extent,  a  people  suffering 
from  regularly  recurring  famines,  means  more  than  it 
would  in  a  differently  situated  country.  The  policy  of 
Russia  in  Far  Asia  means  for  the  government  an  in- 
crease of  power,  and  it  also  means  an  accretion  of  mil- 
lions of  acres.  But  does  Russia  need  these  ?  The  power 
of  the  government  is  now  greater,  far  greater,  indeed, 
than  is  wholesome  for  the  people,  and  while  these  im- 
mense new  territories  are  added  to  the  national  domain, 
vast  districts  between  the  Volga  and  Dniepr  are  in  a 
worse  condition  than  those  in  Western  Ireland  ever  were. 
The  acquisition  of  Manchuria  will,  if  carried  out 
against  the  wishes  of  the  whole  civilised  world,  mean 
the  addition  of  a  country  measuring  over  400,000  square 
miles  and  inhabited  by  some  seven  million  people  of 
Mongolian  race.  How  will  Russia  profit  by  it  ?  Even 
now  we  hear  of  churches,  schools,  even  of  teachers' 
seminaries,  established  in  that  arid  and  thinly  popu- 
lated country.  The  Russian  jingo  press  discusses  the 
alleged  necessity  for  the  existence  of  a  Far  Asiatic  uni- 
versity. A  bishopric  of  the  Orthodox  Church  has  been 
established  for  Manchuria,  and  convents  are  being  built, 
but  built  for  whom  ?  Truly,  Russia  has  duties  to  fulfil 
towards  her  Asiatic  possessions  ;  but  her  prime  duty 
is  towards  the  mother  country.  And  there,  as  the  world 
knows,  the  Russian  government  has  remained  far  be- 
hind in  this  duty.  This  subject  will  be  taken  up  spe- 
cifically in  another  part  of  this  book. 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  31 

In  Eastern  Siberia,  from  I^ake  Baikal  down,  Russia 
is  even  now  working  for  others,  not  for  herself.  The 
Russian  has  met  there  his  great  rival  of  the  future,  the 
Chinaman.  Everwhere  in  that  immense  region  he  is 
encountering  the  indefatigable  son  of  the  Celestial  Em- 
pire, and  the  latter  beats  him  on  every  count;  he  beats 
him  in  the  r61e  of  workman,  as  in  that  of  merchant 
and  banker.  By  no  stretch  of  imagination  will  the 
Russian  ever  be  able  to  compete  successfully  with  the 
frugal  Chinese,  as  industrious  as  the  Russian  is  sloth- 
ful, as  keen  of  a  bargain  and  as  accurate  in  keeping  his 
commercial  engagements  as  the  Russian  is  the  reverse. 
Neither  can  the  Russian  peasant,  with  his  one  hundred 
and  seventy  holidays  in  the  year  and  with  his  vodka 
bottle  ever  lying  under  his  pillow  at  night,  compete 
with  the  Chinese  or  Mongolian  tiller  of  the  soil,  ab- 
stemious and  hardworking  as  the  latter  is.  Within  a 
very  short  time  the  slant-eyed  Mongolian  will  have  be- 
come the  economical  master  of  the  easy-going  Russian ; 
the  former  will  soon  assume  the  aggressive,  and  Russia 
will  find  it  very  hard  indeed  to  hold  her  own.  After 
the  few  years  of  Russian  possession  in  those  parts  con- 
ditions of  the  kind  hinted  at  are  already  foreshadowed. 
Acute  observers  have  noticed  these  things,  and  the 
Russian  himself  has  become  aware  of  them.     Soon 

'  Prince  Ukhtomski  is  one  of  these  shrewd  observers.  In  a 
series  of  articles  in  his  newspaper,  the  Grashdanin,  he  main- 
tained that  Russia  was  not  profiting  in  the  least  by  the  con- 
struction of  the  Siberian  Railroad. 


32  Russia 

the  Russian,  nominal  suzerain  of  the  soil,  will  desire 
the  erection  of  another  great  Chinese  Wall,  but  one  to 
keep  out  the  Chinese  invader.  And  it  is  not  alone  the 
Chinaman  the  Russian  has  to  struggle  with  for  eco- 
nomical supremacy  in  his  new-won  territory.  As 
formidable  foes  in  their  way  are  the  Koreans,  who 
rival  their  Chinese  brethren  in  commercial  agility;  the 
Japanese,  who  up  to  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war 
had  arrived  in  scores  of  thousands  as  colonists,  and  had 
assumed  almost  complete  control  of  the  near-by  sea 
trade;  and  the  Americans  and  Germans,  who  have 
almost  monopolised  the  import  trade,  not  alone  in 
industrial  products  but  just  as  much  in  foodstuffs. 

The  Russian  commercial  fleet  in  Far  Asia  operates 
at  a  considerable  annual  loss.  The  railroads  are 
worked  by  Polish  engineers.  What,  then,  is  left  for  the 
Russian?  Of  course,  there  are  Russian  soldiers  and 
ofi&cials.  And  then  there  is  the  land,  arid,  but  capable 
of  great  productiveness  if  carefully  tended  and  well 
irrigated.  But  these  are  methods  the  Russian  peasant 
is  entirely  ignorant  of.  In  fact,  the  Russian  proper 
cannot  even  compete  with  his  countrymen  of  other 
race  in  Siberia.  In  that  vast  country,  enormous  tracts 
of  which,  particularly  in  the  western  and  southern 
parts,  have  been  brought  under  successful  cultivation, 
settlers  from  the  Baltic  provinces — Esthonians,  Letts, 
Courlanders,  and  Finns  are  thriving.  The  Russian 
peasant,  however,  does  not  thrive;  he  has  neither  the 
energy  nor  the  industry  nor  the  intelligence  required 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  33 

there  for  successful  colonisation.  Russian  nobles  and 
capitalists  who  have  invested  in  Siberian  lands  lack 
likewise  the  necessary  qualities  for  success;  in  the 
majority  of  cases  they  have  leased  at  long  terms  their 
holdings.  Russia  has  constructed  the  Siberian  Road 
and  the  lines  feeding  it,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
for  the  benefit  of  Germans,  Englishmen,  Frenchmen, 
Belgians,  and  Swiss  in  the  western  portions,  and  for 
Americans,  Chinese,  and  Japanese  in  the  eastern,  the 
terminal  portions.  All  these  nations  find  the  Siberian 
Railroad  good  for  exporting  and  for  transit  traffic.  It 
is  Russia's  share  to  maintain  the  roads,  to  pay  for 
the  administration  of  the  immense  country  intersected 
by  them,  and  to  provide  the  required  armies  of  soldiers 
and  fleets  of  naval  vessels.  As  to  the  rest,  raw  pro- 
ducts will  take  this  route  to  reach  the  West  and  will 
thereby  make  the  competition  which  Russian  cereals 
have  to  meet  still  keener.  And  that  Russia  will  have 
no  chance  of  underselling  her  European  and  American 
rivals  in  industrial  imports  going  to  the  markets  of 
Japan,  China,  and  Korea  is  settled  once  for  all  by  the 
fact  that  all  these  nations  have  the  cheaper  sea  route 
open  to  them. 

To  all  these  difficulties  which  Russia  has  to  contend 
with  has  come  the  Anglo-Japanese  treaty  of  alliance, 
dating  from  January  30,  1902.  Such  a  treaty  had  be- 
come a  probability  since  1895.  At  that  time  the  inter- 
vention of  Russia  (backed  up  by  France  and  Germany) 

at  the  close   of  the   Chino-Japanese  War   tore  from 
3 


34  Russia 

Japan's  grasp  the  fruits  of  her  victory.  England  hesi- 
tated for  some  years,  being  averse  to  thus  binding 
herself  formally  to  the  fate  of  another  nation  of  pro- 
nouncedly warlike  and  ambitious  character  like  Japan, 
especially  as  the  probable  theatre  of  war  would  be  so 
far  away  from  English  bases  of  supply.  Meanwhile 
Russia  strengthened  her  position,  both  economically 
and  strategetically,  by  completing  the  Siberian  Rail- 
road and  its  branches  into  Manchuria.  Nevertheless, 
Russia's  position  remains  even  to-day  a  very  weak  one 
in  both  respects,  especially  when  compared  with  her 
two  main  rivals  in  Far  Asia,  Japan,  and  England.  It 
is  useless  to  point  this  out  more  in  detail,  since  all  the 
world  has  become  perfectly  aware  of  Russia's  disad- 
vantages since  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war.  This 
much  in  any  case  is  undeniable:  Russia  has  invested  a 
gigantic  capital,  borrowed  at  great  sacrifice  of  foreign 
creditors,  in  regions  which  to  hold  will  involve  enorm- 
ous expenditure  of  lives  and  money. 

This  is  a  colonial  policy  far  surpassing  the  legitimate 
forces  and  the  expansive  impetus  of  Russia,  a  policy 
which  will  prove  more  mistaken  in  the  end  than  did 
England's  policy  in  South  Africa  and  the  Transvaal. 

Through  the  portals  leading  into  the  world  of  the 
yellow  race  the  chief  civilised  powers  are  pressing  on, 
using  their  elbows  in  the  push  and  looking  askance  at 
each  other,  as  though  making  their  way  into  a  newly 
opened  treasure-chamber.  It  is  the  greed  for  money 
which  impels  them  all,  and  nobody  seems  to  be  think- 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  35 

ing  for  a  moment  what  may  happen  to  him,  once  he 
has  penetrated  into  the  coveted  place. 

There  is  no  people  on  earth  which  faces  our  Occi- 
dental civilisation  with  such  animosity  as  does  the 
Chinese.  Wherever  the  Westerner  has,  so  far,  met  the 
Chinaman  on  more  or  less  equal  ground,  this  crass 
contrast  at  once  appeared.  The  harsh  materialism  of 
the  Chinese  invariably  repelled  the  Occidental.  Prac- 
tically without  religion  or  morals,  without  a  sense 
of  truth,  honesty,  or  cleanliness,  the  Chinaman  has 
proved  an  indigestible  morsel,  not  alone  in  America  but 
also  in  the  Englishman's  Australia.  I^aws  of  exclu- 
sion had  to  be  passed  against  him,  and  against  him 
alone,  of  all  the  nations  and  peoples  under  the  sun. 
This  is  a  material  age,  but  nobody  else  performs  the 
dance  around  the  golden  calf  with  such  fervour  as  does 
the  almond-eyed  son  of  the  Celestial  Empire.  And  yet 
the  whole  world  of  Western  civilisation  is  striving  hard 
nowadays  to  obtain  ingress  in  China.  What  will  be 
the  consequence?  The  Chinaman  is  superior  to  the 
Westerner  in  every  economical  aspect.  Once  he  begins 
to  assimilate  those  portions  of  our  arts  and  crafts  which 
seem  to  him  to  "  pay  " — and  indeed  this  process  of  as- 
similation has  already  set  in — will  the  yellow  man  not 
beat  in  the  end  his  fellow  mortal  of  white  skin  ? 
Everything  points  that  way. 

Of  all  the  nations  competing  with  each  other  in 
China,  Russia  alone  is  for  many  thousands  of  miles 
China's  neighbour.    This  gives  her  immense  advantage 


36  Russia 

in  establishing  a  predominant  political  influence  upon 
that  ancient  land.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  this  fact 
constitutes  another  and  very  momentous  element  of 
weakness  for  Russia,  especially  economically  consid- 
ered. That  feature  of  the  case  has  been  sufficiently 
dwelt  on  in  the  foregoing.  But  there  is  another  aspect 
to  this:  the  moral  influence  of  the  Chinaman  upon  the 
thin  population  of  the  whole  of  Russian  Far  Asia  will 
most  decidedly  be  unwholesome.  True,  Russian  ad- 
ministration in  that  quarter  is  even  now  not  of  a  high 
moral  order.  Corruption,  looseness  of  morals,  drunken- 
ness, and  many  other  vices  are  leading  traits  there  to- 
day. But  let  the  Chinaman  crowd  into  those  thinly 
populated  regions — and  the  tide  of  Chinese  immigration 
has  set  in  in  earnest — and  that  far-away  part  of  the 
Czar's  dominions  will  become  a  high  school  of  all  the 
unnamable  iniquity  associated  with  the  name  of  China- 
man. This  is  a  very  real  danger  for  Russia,  and  one 
quite  irrespective  of  the  issues  of  this  war. 

The  real  interests  of  the  Russian  people  are  not  per- 
mitted extensive  ventilation  in  the  Russian  press.  So- 
called  public  opinion  there  is  nothing  else  than  the 
reflex  of  government  opinion,  and  the  latter  is  variable 
as  the  winds,  shifting  with  the  slightest  current  of  the 
supposed  political  interests  involved  in  any  incident  of 
international  scope.  For  a  few  months,  at  best  for  a 
couple  of  years,  the  views  and  aims  of  some  particular 
Russian  statesman  or  court  favourite  will  hold  sway. 
Then  they  are  superseded,  as  like  as  not,  by  opinions 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  37 

and  aims  making  in  the  opposite  direction.  It  is  vacil- 
lation that  rules  Russia's  inner  councils,  a  fact  of  which 
everybody  in  Russia  is  aware,  but  which  is  suspected  by 
very  few  foreign  observers.  The  latter  almost  invari- 
ably mistake  the  rigidity  of  the  Russian  bureaucratic 
system  for  a  settled  Russian  state  policy. 

Just  now  and  for  some  years  past  the  Drang  nacJi 
Osten  has  the  upper  hand  of  Russia.  But  who  knows 
how  long  this  current  will  last  ?  Certainly  the  Russian 
land  hunger  is  a  most  abnormal  thing.  Russia,  even 
to-day,  has  bitten  off  a  great  deal  more  than  she  can 
chew,  let  alone  the  question  of  digestion. 

Not  satisfied  with  her  enormous  acquisitions  in  Far 
Asia,  the  most  unprofitable  in  every  sense  that  have 
ever  come  to  her,  she  has  been  scheming  and  reaching 
out  her  hand  for  Mongolia,  for  the  moment  the  western 
part  of  it;  she  is  not  satisfied  with  a  virtual  protectorate 
over  Persia,  but  demands  impatiently  egress  on  the 
Persian  Gulf;  she  declares  Asia  Minor  and  the  lands 
of  the  Euphrates  Russian  "  interest  spheres,"  and  the 
construction  of  a  railroad  to  Bagdad  and  the  Indian 
Ocean  by  Germans  and  Frenchmen  an  infringement  of 
Russian  interests.  The  whole  of  Asia  she  dreams  of  as 
her  future  possession, 

IvOoking  at  the  tangible  Russian  interests  in  non- 
Russian  Asia  in  the  cold  light  of  reason,  what  are  they  ? 
In  the  year  1898  Russia  exported  industrial  products 
of  a  more  or  less  finished  quality  to  the  small  amount 
of  a   trifle   over    twenty-one   million   roubles.      This 


3^  Russia 

amount  has  increased  since  to  an  annual  average  of 
twenty-six  millions.  Of  this  small  amount  she  sent  to 
non-Russian  Asia  only  an  average  of  between  six  and 
seven  millions,  mostly  cotton  goods,  other  textiles,  and 
hardware.  Russian  commercial  interests  in  Southern 
Persia  and  on  the  Persian  Gulf  are  non-existent.  Not 
a  single  Russian  is  living  in  that  whole  region.  The 
case  is  paralleled  in  Abyssinia.  And  yet  the  alleged 
Russian  interests  there  not  long  ago  were  inflated  at 
the  behest  of  the  Russian  government  to  an  affair  ot 
the  first  national  magnitude. 

The  real  "  interest  .sphere  "  of  Russia  in  that  part  of 
Asia  not  yet  under  her  flag,  when  viewed  soberly, 
embraces  the  whole  of  Central  Asia,  and  includes 
Northern  Afghanistan  and  Northern  Persia,  with  Te- 
heran and  Ispahan.  From  her  relations  with  those 
countries  Russia  is  profiting  to-day  and  may  profit 
more  in  the  future  by  playing  her  cards  well.  For  that 
reason,  too,  her  new  railroad  line,  that  is,  the  one  in 
process  of  construction  connecting  Orenburg  and  Tash- 
kend,  is,  considered  purely  as  an  economic  venture,  a 
sound  undertaking.  By  it  Russia  will  obtain  valuable 
rawstuffs,  above  all,  cotton,  and  she  will  have  there  a 
favourable  market  for  her  industrial  products,  textiles, 
sugar,  iron.  This  region  is  very  large  and  capable  of 
great  development.  Nobody  is  there  stopping  Russia's 
way,  and  even  if  she  should  lay  a  firm  hand  upon 
Teheran,  Ispahan,  Candahar,  and  Herat,  it  is  not  prob- 
able that  England  would  go  to  war,  certainly  not  if 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  39 

Russia  gave  good  and  sufficient  guarantees  to  confine 
herself,  without  artidre  pcnsee,  to  the  northern  districts 
named.  For  many  years  Russia  has  exerted  a  pre- 
dominant political  and  financial  influence  upon  Persia, 
having  ousted  England  from  that  position.  The  fine 
large  road  leading  from  the  Russo-Persian  border  at 
Resht  on  the  Caspian  to  Teheran  has  been  built  with 
Russian  money;  a  loan  made  by  Russia  to  Persia  has 
brought  Russian  revenue  control,  and  has  flooded  the 
country  with  Russian  Cossacks,  nominally  under  the 
command  of  the  Shah,  but  in  reality  obeying  Russia's 
orders,  and  Russian  officials  are  now  in  the  pay  of  the 
Shah  in  large  numbers.  Persia  herself  is  very  badly 
administered  and  will  fall  in  time  like  a  ripe  apple  into 
Russia's  lap.  This  process  is  inevitable,  unless  Russia 
meets  with  a  far  severer  check  in  her  advance  than 
any  she  has  met  with  .so  far,  a  check  not  only  crippling 
her  armed  resources,  but  also  her  finances.  That,  of 
course,  is  quite  within  the  possibilities. 

When  the  northern  parts  of  Persia  and  Afghanistan 
shall  have  become  Russian,  as  Khiva  and  Bokhara  did, 
Russia  will  have  a  compact  and  fairly  homogeneous 
colonial  empire  on  her  south-eastern  confines  extending 
from  the  Turkish  to  the  Chinese  frontiers,  a  district 
more  conveniently  located  and  containing  more  intrinsic 
possibilities  of  commercial  exploitation  than  almost  any 
other  now  held  by  the  different  European  colonising 
powers.  It  would  be  a  task  worthy  of  far-seeing  Rus- 
sian statesmanship  to  bend  the  country's  energies  in 


40  Russia 

that  direction,  and  such  a  task  would  fully  tax  Russia's 
expansive  powers  for  many  years  to  come.  For  Russia 
is  intrinsically  far  too  feeble  to  scatter  her  forces  in  the 
manner  she  has  done  of  late  years.  With  the  comple- 
tion of  the  direct  railroad  connecting  Tashkend  via 
Orenburg  with  Moscow,  Russia's  economic  independ- 
ence, one  of  the  most  important  paragraphs  in  M.  de 
Witte's  programme,  would  have  been  nearly  estab- 
lished. But  the  district  spoken  of,  as  well  as  Turke- 
stan, will  require  great  labour  and  vast  sums  for  their 
proper  development. 

Russia's  excessive  expansion  policy  involves  another 
serious  disadvantage  besides  the  one  of  unduly  draining 
the  national  capacities  of  capital  and  energy.  It  carries 
with  it  a  further  and  very  injurious  extension  of  her 
bureaucratic  system,  a  system  which  is  among  the 
greatest  drawbacks  to  Russia's  free  development.  It 
makes  it  impossible  for  her  government  to  listen  to  the 
unceasing  demands  of  Russia's  enlightened  classes — 
numerically  small  but  very  important — for  decentralisa- 
tion, for  the  greater  powers  of  the  zemslvo, — in  other 
words,  for  greater  local  and  provincial  self-government. 
Conversely,  the  system  at  present  followed  by  the 
national  government  renders  a  policy  of  outward  suc- 
cesses and  of  spurious  splendour  and  military  glory 
almost  a  necessity,  in  order  thereby  to  keep  a  firm  rein 
on  the  masses,  cowed  by  the  apparent  strength  of  this 
very  government,  but  probably  unreliable  in  the  event 
of  serious  defeat. 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  41 

It  has  been  customary  to  present  the  Russian  tchin 
(bureaucracy)  as  an  immense  and  wholly  reliable  army 
at  the  bidding  of  the  central  government.  Once  this 
was  the  case,  but  it  is  true  no  longer.  Russia's 
bureaucracy  has  swollen  to  such  proportions,  has  of 
necessity  admitted  within  its  ranks  such  heterogeneous 
elements  and  is  in  large  part  located  so  far  away  from 
the  direct  influence  of  the  central  government,  that  to- 
day its  one-time  characteristic  feature  of  thorough  soli- 
darity has  been  lost.  Elsewhere  this  topic  is  treated 
of  more  at  length.  Here  it  will  suflBce  to  say  that 
during  the  past  fifteen  years  evidences  have  become 
more  and  more  apparent  that  no  small  percentage  of 
Russia's  officialdom  has  grown  to  identify  itself  more 
with  the  interests  and  views  of  the  masses  than  with 
those  of  the  central  government  whose  main  prop  these 
same  officials  are  supposed  to  be.  Nevertheless,  it 
would  be  going  too  far  to  assume  that  a  radical  change 
in  the  traditional  administrative  system  of  Russia  is 
probable  within  the  near  future,  except  in  case  Russia 
meets  with  very  serious  reverses  in  her  external  pol- 
icy, such,  for  instance,  as  a  crushing  defeat  by  Japan. 
That,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe,  would  prove  a 
signal  blessing  in  disguise,  leading  to  thorough  in- 
ternal reforms.  At  present  the  cancer  of  dissatisfac- 
tion with  prevailing  conditions  is  gnawing  on  and  on 
throughout  Russia,  having  seized  the  entire  middle 
class,  the  larger  portion  of  the  nobility,  the  small  land- 
holders, a  considerable  percentage  of  the  tchin,  and  even 


42  Russia 

vast  numbers  of  her  phenomenally  patient  peasantry. 
The  voices  heard  in  Russia  in  accusation  of  the  prevail- 
ing bureaucratic  and  centralising  system  are  becoming 
louder  and  louder,  and  many  of  them  can  be  heard  even 
in  the  immediate  entourage  of  the  Czar.  The  charge 
is  made  that  Russia  proper  is  becoming  poorer  every 
year,  that  the  burden  of  taxation  is  crushing  out  every 
spark  of  aspiration,  and  that  the  omnipotence  of  official- 
dom is  steadily  increasing.  Indeed  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  every  indication  points  to  an  eventual  bitter 
struggle  between  the  adherents  of  the  present  system 
and  the  advocates  of  a  more  rational  and  natural  one. 
The  central  government  has  been  shaping  its  course  for 
years  to  meet  this  struggle,  and  what  its  outcome  will 
be  in  the  end  no  prophet  at  present  can  tell. 

There  are  close  observers  of  Russian  conditions  who 
maintain  that  the  Russian  people  are  ethnologically  in- 
capable of  being  governed  by  any  other  system  than 
the  present  one.  So  shrewd  a  judge  as  the  French 
writer  and  philosopher,  Gobineau,  claims  this.  In- 
deed, there  are  many  things  in  the  Russian  national 
character  which  seem  to  uphold  such  a  theory.  One 
of  the  most  distressing  features  of  the  case  is  the  fact 
that  Russians  so  far,  whenever  they  have  obtained  in 
any  measure  and  number  independence  and  self-govern- 
ment, have  been  unable  to  use  these  boons  wisely.  In 
some  respects,  for  instance,  M.  de  Witte  has  proven 
himself  one  of  the  ablest  statesmen  Russia  has  ever 
had,  and  certainly  he  has  enjoyed  in  Russian  public  life 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  43 

every  facility  for  many  years  past  of  fathoming  the 
Russian  national  character.  And  M.  de  Witte  in  a 
memorial  to  Nicholas  II,,  written  in  1901,  makes  the 
distinct  claim  that  the  people  are  so  devoid  of  initiative, 
that  this  defect  of  their  character  is  racially  so  inherent, 
as  to  render  them  incapable  of  ever  attaining  of  their 
own  accord  and  by  their  own  means  to  any  larger 
measure  of  liberty,  diligence,  or  sense  of  duty  and 
order.  Nothing  but  the  lash,  he  asserts,  will  keep 
them  in  the  middle  of  the  road. 

However  that  may  be,  it  seems  quite  certain  that  the 
Russian  of  to-day,  that  is,  the  Russian  ethnologically 
considered,  is  not  and  cannot  be  the  motive  and  direct- 
ive power  in  the  vast  empire  which  bears  his  name. 
Against  the  eighty-six  millions  of  Russians  we  find 
some  forty-four  millions  of  tribes  and  populations  other 
than  Russian  within  the  empire.  In  many  respects  it 
is  this  non-Russian  element  which  is  superior  to  the 
Russian  himself,  certainly  in  all  essentials  which  go 
to  make  a  strong  and  progressive  people.  Even  such 
retrograde  populations  as  the  Tartar  and  Armenian 
make,  as  a  rule,  more  prosperous  subjects  and  better  ad- 
ministrators than  he.  The  Finns,  the  Baltic  Germans, 
the  Letts,  the  Lithuanians,  the  Poles,  and,  with  a  cer- 
tain reservation,  the  Jews  (that  is  whenever  they  have 
been  given  an  opportunity,  which  has  been  rarely  the 
case)  —  all  of  them,  when  competing  on  even  terms, 
prove  themselves  stronger  in  the  struggle  for  existence, 
on  the  same  ground,  than  the  Russians  proper.     What 


44  Russia 

indeed  would  Russia  be  were  it  not  for  her  statesmen, 
administrators,  generals,  engineers,  agriculturists,  and 
industrial  leaders  of  non- Russian  blood!  The  whole 
of  modern  Russian  history  on  almost  every  page  teems 
with  names  of  foreign  origin.  And  this  enormous  in- 
fluence of  non-Russians  in  guiding  the  nation's  destinies 
has  continued  to  this  day.  The  two  men  who  have 
been  the  chief  advisers  of  Nicholas  II.  are  both  of 
Baltic  German  origin — De  Witte  and  De  Plelive.  Even 
Alexander  III.,  father  of  the  present  ruler,  intensely 
Old-Russian  in  spirit  and  motives  as  he  was,  found  it 
a  sheer  impossibility  to  govern  Russia  by  the  Russians. 
He,  like  all  his  predecessors  since  Peter  the  Great,  saw 
'..mself  compelled  to  use  as  his  right-hand  men  persons 
of  non-Russian  extraction. 

The  present  Russian  dynasty  itself  is  not  Russian  in 
blood.  It  began  with  the  extinction  of  the  Muscovite 
rulers  of  Rurik's  lineage.  The  great  Peter  took  for 
wife  a  Baltic  German  woman  of  low  extraction,  though 
heroic  in  mind  and  character.  Since  then  the  admix- 
ture of  German  blood  in  the  veins  of  the  czars,  contin- 
uing uninterruptedly  for  two  centuries,  has  practically 
changed  the  line  of  Russian  rulers  into  a  foreign  one. 
Indeed,  to  cast  even  a  hasty  glance  at  modern  Russian 
history  is  to  see  that  the  ruling  Russian  dynasty  is  any- 
thing but  typically  Russian  in  character,  looks,  and 
sympathies.  How  else,  indeed,  could  it  have  been 
possible  that  the  very  language  of  the  nation,  Russian, 
has  been  tabooed  at  the  court  of  St.  Petersburg  for  one 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  45 

hundred  and  fifty  years  past!  The  Russian  nobility 
even  to-day,  when  amongst  themselves,  prefer  to  speak 
either  French  or  German.  Russian  is  looked  upon  by 
them  as  a  barbarous  tongue,  only  "  fit  to  be  spoken  to 
servants." 

Yet  there  has  come  a  noticeable  change  within  the 
past  twenty  years.  The  growth  of  the  Panslavic  Party 
has  sharpened  the  sense  of  national  pride  within  certain 
circles.  As  in  other  countries  that  could  be  named,  a 
sickly  and  sentimental  feeling  of  jingoism  has  been 
steadily  growing,  and  frequently  of  late  years  it  has 
found  vent  in  certain  organs  of  the  Russian  press. 
' '  Russia  for  the  Russians ' '  has  become  the  motto. 
But  how  carry  this  out  ?  When  we  take  into  considera- 
tion the  actual  facts  outlined  above — the  apparent  in- 
ability of  the  Russian  to  govern  either  himself  or  others, 
and  his  tendency  to  rely  on  the  initiative  of  foreigners  to 
lead  his  country  into  the  path  of  progress;  the  failure  of 
the  Panslavic  and  Old  Russian  parties  to  accomplish 
anything  of  lasting  benefit  to  the  nation;  the  circum- 
stance that  the  only  great  achievement  due  to  the  im- 
petus of  the  Russian  masses  and  of  the  Russian  mind 
was  the  war  of  1876  to  1878  against  Turkey,  accom- 
plishing nothing  and  loading  the  country  with  a  new 
enormous  debt;  the  further  fact  that  native  Russia  is 
corrupt  to  its  very  marrow-bones — what  would  "  Russia 
for  the  Russians  "  mean,  if  it  were  possible  to  carry  it 
out,  but  the  sliding  of  the  whole  country  into  the 
slough  of  despond  ? 


46  Russia 

Certainly  it  is  a  unique  anomaly  that  the  largest 
empire  of  the  world  depends,  for  the  little  progress  that 
is  being  wrought  there,  not  on  the  overwhelming  ma- 
jority of  its  population, —  that  majority  which  has 
amalgamated  more  or  less  successfully  the  minority  of 
forty-four  millions,  made  up  of  fragments  of  popula- 
tions speaking  two  hundred  different  languages  and 
dialects,  and  following  every  conceivable  form  of  wor- 
ship, from  the  rudest  pagan  to  the  most  elevated  type 
of  Christianity, — but  on  its  elements  of  foreign  blood. 
Yet  such  is  the  undeniable  if  curious  fact.  And  up  to 
this  hour  the  aroused  national  spirit  has  only  intensified 
the  old  curse  imported  into  the  country  by  Peter  the 
Great,  the  outward  make-believe,  the  passionate  desire 
to  "pretend"  in  dealings  with  Western  nations,  to 
convince  them  of  the  military,  intellectual,  and  moral 
equality  of  Russia.  This  pretence  has  not  held  water 
at  every  critical  juncture  in  Russia's  modern  history. 
The  barbarian  has  always  cropped  out.  But  this  crav- 
ing for  the  ascendancy  of  the  purely  Russian  element 
within  Russia,  natural  enough  as  it  is  on  the  surface, 
has  other  and  even  more  serious  consequences  in  its 
wake. 

The  eighty-six  millions  of  Russians  will  no  longer 
permit  a  small  minority  of  German,  Polish,  French,  or 
Swiss  blood  to  rule  them,  and  in  order  to  prove  their 
ability  to  take,  themselves,  the  dominant  position  they 
have  to  fall  back  on  their  old  device  of  make-believe, 
what  the  Chinaman  calls  "  saving  one's  face,"  by  pre- 


Russia  as  a  World  Power  47 

tendiug  to  qualities  and  virtues  which  in  reality  they 
do  not  possess.  With  this  recent  current  in  national 
sentiment  every  Russian  ruler  and  every  member  of  the 
higher  spheres  of  government  has  to  reckon.  In  this 
way  it  has  come  about  that  the  Russian  is  no  longer 
lifted  to  the  higher  level  of  his  rulers  of  foreign  blood, 
but  that  he  drags  them  down  to  his  lower  level.  In 
the  matter  of  heightening  the  civilisatory  level  of  the 
country  Russia  has  now  come  to  a  dead  stop,  and  this 
is  owing  to  the  curious  condition  of  afiairs  pointed  out. 
If  these  conditions  were  to  continue  permanently  the 
doom  of  Russia  would  indeed  be  sealed.  But  it  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose  that.  The  Russian  soul,  save  in 
one  or  two  particulars,  is  in  constant  fluctuation,  and 
the  prevailing  current  of  narrow  nationalism  will  pass, 
as  so  many  others  have  passed  there. 

To  sum  up:  We  see  an  immense  empire,  a  goodly 
portion  of  it  situated  within  the  temperate  zone  and 
rich  in  natural  resources,  though  for  the  larger  part 
lying  fallow  for  lack  of  capital  and  enterprise.  Its 
enormous  extent,  deficient  in  means  of  communication, 
is  both  a  source  of  strength  and  weakness  as  a  world 
power.  Its  population  is  by  no  means  homogeneous. 
One- third  of  the  whole  does  not  even  speak  Russian, 
and  both  religious  and  race  strife  are  rampant.  This 
may  be  taken  as  another  element  of  weakness  in  her 
armour.  As  a  whole,  the  Russian  lacks  individual 
enterprise  and  steadiness  of  energy.  Russia's  finances 
will  be  considered  under  another  head.     Here  it  is  but 


48  Russia 

necessary  to  say  that  they  are  thoroughly  unsound; 
that,  in  fact,  she  is  almost  entirely  dependent  on  foreign 
nations  for  the  money  needed  to  maintain  her  national 
household;  that  great  undertakings,  such  as  railroads, 
large  industrial  establishments,  agricultural  machinery, 
etc.,  are  carried  out  entirely  with  foreign  funds  and 
largely  by  foreign  brains;  and  that  Russia,  whenever 
she  wishes  to  engage  on  any  serious  task,  such  as,  for 
instance,  a  war,  must  rely  on  the  purses  of  her  political 
and  commercial  rivals.     Surely  a  humiliating  position 
for  a  nation  that  aims  at  subduing  the  whole  of  Asia! 
In  the  matter  of  coasts  and  ocean  borders  nature  has 
been  most  unkind  to  her.     That  fact,  indeed,  is  nearly 
always  pleaded  in  excuse  for  Russia's  unappeased  ap- 
petite for  new  conquests.     An  ice-free  harbour  on  the 
Pacific,  forsooth!     She  has  her  ice- free  harbour  now, 
—that  is,  if  the  Japanese  will  let  her  keep  it.      But 
whether  or  no,  it  is  a  great  deal  more  than  an  ice- free 
harbour  that  Russia  needs  if  she  would  stand  on  an 
equal  footing  with  other  world  powers. 

Russia  is  invulnerable  only  in  one  narrow,  definite 
sense — in  the  sense  of  her  unwieldiness. 


Note  by  the  Bay  View  Reading  Club 

When  this  book  was  selected  for  the  Bay  "View  Reading 
Club's  course  on  Russia  and  Japan,  it  was  the  judgment  of  the 
management  that  Chapter  III  on  Russian  Finance,  and  Chapter 
XI  on  Russian  Bureaucracy,  beginning  on  page  254,  would  not 
be  of  special  interest  to  most  of  our  members.  In  the  lesson 
assignments,  therefore,  these  chapters  will  be  passed  over. 
They  are  retained  in  the  book  for  the  benefit  of  any  who  may 
desire  to  make  a  study  of  the  subjects. 

CHAPTER  III 

RUSSIAN  FINANCES 

The  Great  Difficulty  of  Obtaining  Reliable  Figures  for  Russia's 
Actual  Financial  Condition— Paucity  of  Capital  in  the 
Country  and  Reasons  Therefor  —  Survival  of  Obsolete 
Trading  Methods— National  Finances  Begin  with  Peter 
the  Great's  Reforms— A  Fluctuating  Currency— Within 
the  Past  Seventeen  Years  Russia's  Avowed  National  Debt 
has  Increased  by  Over  Two  Billions— The  All-Important 
R&le  of  the  Foreign  Creditor— Wishnegradsky's  Mercan- 
tilism—Witte  Follows  in  his  Footsteps— A  Vast  Increase 
in  Exports  is  Brought  about  by  Artificial  Means — The 
Peasant  and  Landowner,  Forming  Ninety  Per  Cent,  of  the 
Total  Population,  Being  the  Sufferers— Witte's  Methods 
Shown  in  Detail— Industrial  Development  of  the  Country 
—  The  French  Alliance  Systematically  Utilised  —  The 
French  Creditor  now  Averse  to  Further  Loans— A  Gov- 
ernment Monopoly  System — Constant  Difficulty  of  Main- 
taining the  Gold  Standard— The  "  Gold  Tribute  "-Russia's 
Railroads  do  Not  Pay  —  Reasons  for  This  —  The  Liquor 
Monopoly — Facts  and  Figures  Proving  the  Unsoundness 
of  Russia's  Finances 

IN  dealing  with  Rtissian  finances  in  such  a  manner 
that  a  comprehensive  and  fairly  accurate  impres- 
sion may  be  conveyed,  more  obstacles  are  to  be  over- 
come than  would  be  the  case  with  those  of  any  other 
modern  country.  For  the  searcher  after  truth  has  to 
encounter  not  only  a  paucity  of  reliable  material,  but 

49 


50  Russia 

he  is  hampered  by  the  conflicting  oflBcial  reports 
emanating  from  the  Russian  government  itself.  Out- 
side of  that  country  these  conditions  are,  as  a  rule, 
little  understood.  It  is  the  case,  however, —  though 
one  runs  counter  to  popular  conceptions  in  asserting 
it, — that  the  various  departments  of  the  Russian  gov- 
ernment are  practically  independent  of  each  other, 
and  that  each  head  while  in  power  does  pretty  much 
as  he  pleases,  not  only  in  his  administrative  policy, 
in  his  appointments,  and  in  the  degree  of  enforcing 
or  not  enforcing  existing  laws,  but  even  in  the  matter 
of  budget  schedules,  memorials  to  the  Czar,  and  in 
oSicial  reports.  Even  in  that  particular  Russia  is  an 
exceptional  country.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  com- 
plete reliance  cannot  be  placed  upon  such  reports. 
Frequently  they  are  got  up  for  the  very  purpose  of 
mystifying  the  unwary,  a  category  from  which  not 
even  the  minister's  imperial  master  is  excluded,  and 
which  by  all  means  includes  the  foreign  creditors  or 
would-be  creditors  of  Russia. 

It  requires,  therefore,  considerable  caution  to  extract 
from  Russian  official  reports  anything  approximating 
absolute  truth.  It  requires  comparison  not  only  with 
previous  reports  by  the  same  member  of  the  Russian 
cabinet,  but  with  those  of  his  predecessors  and  his  col- 
leagues in  the  existing  cabinet.  And  even  then  many 
things  appearing  in  these  official  documents  must  be 
taken  with  a  very  large  grain  of  salt.  However,  while 
making  no  claim  for  absolute  reliability  of  every  detail 


Russian  Finances  51 

enumerated  in  this  chapter,  it  may  fairly  be  claimed 
for  it  that  it  comes  about  as  near  to  the  actual  facts  as 
circumstances  will  permit. 

In  the  Russia  of  olden  days  the  rulers  of  Muscovy 
were  living  like  hereditary  lords  upon  their  ances- 
tral estates.  The  dues  which  they  received  from  all 
sorts  of  ware,  the  commercial  monopolies  which  they 
granted,  all  went  into  the  purse  of  the  Czar  to  defray 
therefrom  his  personal  expenses,  and  the  people,  as 
such,  derived  no  benefit.  Only  with  Peter  the  Great, 
with  the  European  customs  and  ideas  introduced  by 
him,  did  financiering  enter  Russia.  But  even  Peter 
managed  for  the  most  part  to  conduct  the  national 
household  by  means  of  taxes  and  dues  paid  in  kind,  in 
men  and  products  of  the  country,  and  in  this  archaic 
way  he  carried  out  his  reform  measures  aud  waged  his 
wars.  In  money  the  entire  Russian  budget  amounted 
only  to  three  million  roubles  during  the  earlier  part  of 
his  reign,  an  amount  which  towards  the  end  rose  to  ten 
millions.  Nevertheless  his  craze  for  sudden  reforms 
was  very  expensive  for  the  country.  Russian  his- 
torians tell  us  that  between  1678  and  17 10  the  number 
of  tax-paying  estates  diminished  by  twenty  per  cent. 
One-fifth  of  the  entire  population  had  been  killed  by 
his  wars  or  driven  out  of  the  country  by  his  reforms. 

The  "divine"  Catherine  played  her  conspicuous  part 
on  the  stage  of  world  politics  at  an  annual  expense  to 
the  Russian  nation  of  about  sixty-five  million  roubles, 
and  even  of  that  relatively  small  sum  she  could  afford 


52  Russia 

on  one  occasion  to  lay  out  a  matter  of  seven  millions  in 
purchasing  a  rare  collection  of  cameos.  Nearly  all  of 
this  went  for  the  court  and  army;  the  country  and  the 
people  saw  nothing  of  it.  In  1734  the  administra- 
tion of  the  whole  empire,  stretching  even  at  that  time 
from  Riga  on  the  Baltic  across  the  steppes  of  European 
Russia,  and  then  through  the  whole  of  Northern  Asia 
to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific,  involved  to  the  state  an  ex- 
penditure of  but  181,000  roubles  in  money.  The  old 
conditions  of  barter  survived  in  the  interior;  even  to- 
day they  still  exist  to  a  surprising  extent  in  the  rural 
communities  and  on  the  estates  of  the  nobles.  Rent 
even  to-day  is  hardly  ever  paid  in  money  by  peasant  to 
noble;  neither  are  wages  paid  in  money  by  the  noble 
to  the  peasant. 

The  employment  of  money  as  a  mode  of  payment 
dates  on  a  larger  scale  only  since  the  emancipation  of 
the  serfs  in  186 1.  Up  to  that  time  about  ninety-five 
per  cent,  of  the  total  population  were  living  in  the 
country  from  the  produce  of  the  soil  or  from  domestic 
industry.  Industrial  products,  more  particularly  those 
of  foreign  make,  were  used  only  at  the  court  of  the 
Czar,  by  the  army,  the  navy,  and  a  comparatively 
small  fraction  of  the  nobility.  This,  of  course,  applies 
only  to  Russia  proper,  not  to  the  recently  acquired  pro- 
vinces on  Russia's  western  frontier. 

Thus  things  proceeded  for  about  two  hundred  years. 
Ostermann,  one  of  the  shrewdest  of  Russian  ministers, 
made  a  fairly  successful  attempt  to  increase  the  coun- 


Russian  Finances  53 

try's  sea  trade,  but  even  in  1742  this  amounted  to  only 
eight  million  roubles.  When  Catherine  ascended  the 
throne  Russia's  foreign  trade  had  risen  to  twenty-one 
milHons,  and  at  her  death,  1796,  it  amounted  to  109 
millions.  The  entire  revenues  of  the  national  govern- 
ment in  that  year  are  given  at  68,750,000  roubles;  out 
of  that  sum  not  only  the  whole  court  led  a  luxurious 
life,  but  an  army  of  593,000  men  was  supported.  At 
that  time  there  was  only  copper  currency  in  the  coun- 
try, and  silver  had  to  be  bought  at  a  discount  of  eighty 
per  cent. 

Then  came  the  Napoleonic  era,  and  this  period  of 
Russian  glory  and  of  many  victories  brought  to  the 
Russian  people  nothing  but  misery.  The  world  policy 
of  Alexander  I.  increased  the  national  debt  by  more 
than  a  billion  roubles.  In  1816,  after  Napoleon's  final 
departure  for  St.  Helena,  Russia's  army  still  swallowed 
234  million  roubles.  But  trade  was  progressing ;  by 
1 81 7  there  was  a  balance  in  Russia's  favour  of  thirty- 
two  millions.  The  national  budget  showed  an  excess 
of  revenues  of  414  millions,  although  this  means  de- 
preciated paper  currency ,  so-called  ' '  assignates. ' '  Rus- 
sia's  debt  was  ill-founded  and  as  ill-funded,  the  interest 
being  payable  in  gold  to  the  foreign  creditors,  involv- 
ing an  enormous  loss. 

The  Crimean  War  threw  back  Russia's  young  credit 
to  the  old  low  level.  But  with  the  ascension  of  Alex- 
ander II.,  during  the  brief  era  of  reforms  inaugurated 
by  him  between  1861-1864,  Russian  credit  was  once 


54  Russia 

more  in  the  ascendant.  This  credit  was  utilised  to  the 
full.  Railroads  were  built  with  foreign  capital,  a  be- 
ginning of  industrial  development  was  marked,  and 
then  the  Turkish  War  of  1877  broke  out.  All  this,  of 
course,  required  large  sums.  In  Russia  itself  there  was 
not  then,  and  there  is  not  now,  much  capital,  owing  to 
retrograde  conditions.  Within  twenty-five  years  Russia 
contracted  foreign  loans  to  the  tune  of  one  and  one-half 
billions  in  gold.  Despite  the  Siberian  gold  mines  the 
year  1887  saw  only  281  millions  in  gold  in  her  national 
treasury.  Such  a  reserve  was  absolutely  required  every 
year  to  enable  Russia  to  pay  the  interest  on  her  foreign 
debt  in  specie. 

In  that  year,  1887,  Wishnegradsky  became  finance 
minister.  The  son  of  an  humble  Russian  pope  (Ortho- 
dox priest),  this  man  had  risen  to  prominence  by  his 
thoroughly  un-Russian  energy  and  boldness.  From 
his  advent  dates  Russia's  modern  financial  system; 
He  inaugurated  a  financial  policy  having  for  its  aim 
the  exploitation  of  all  the  national  material  forces  for 
fiscal  purposes;  this  system  at  present  seems  to  have 
attained  its  zenith. 

European  Russia  at  that  time  had  railroads,  tele- 
graphs, postal  facilities,  and  though  all  these  means  of, 
communication  were  far  behind  similar  ones  in  coun- 
tries to  the  west,  they  enabled  the  central  administra- 
tion in  St.  Petersburg  to  keep  in  constant  touch  with 
its  instruments,  the  provincial  oflBcials.  To-day  com- 
munication of  this  kind  reaches  as  far  as  Manchuria. 


Russian  Finances  55 

In  pre-railroad  days  the  Russian  administration  had 
been  a  network  of  corruption  and  bribery.  Since  Wish- 
negradsky  organised  the  new  financial  system  his  de- 
partment has  improved  greatly.  It  is  that  in  which 
the  greatest  "pickings"  were  to  be  had,  and  even  to- 
day, despite  decided  improvement,  conditions  still  pre- 
vail which  in  Europe  or  this  country  would  not  be 
tolerated  for  a  moment.  However,  everything  is  rela- 
tive, and  relatively  speaking  the  Russian  department 
of  finances  is  now  rather  clean. 

A  number  of  the  important  statements  in  the  follow- 
ing part  of  this  chapter  are  taken  on  the  authority  of 
M,  de  Witte's  former  chief  assistant  in  the  department 
of  finance,  M,  Schwanebach,  a  member  of  the  imperial 
council. 

Wishnegradsky  in  1887  found  a  national  debt  of  four 
and  one-half  billion  roubles,  eating  up  annually  262 
millions  in  interest.  He  also  found  281  millions  in 
gold  reserve.  During  a  long  period  of  growth  in  the 
Russian  national  debt,  since  the  end  of  the  sixties,  one 
country  after  another  had  adopted  the  gold  standard. 
It  was  realised  that  Russia,  if  she  would  not  fall  griev- 
ously behind,  would  have  ultimately  to  adopt  the  same 
standard.  From  1862  to  1887  Russia's  balance  of  trade 
was  the  wrong  way.  About  fifty  to  sixty  millions  in 
gold  flowed  out  of  the  country  in  excess  of  its  gold  re- 
turns. From  1881,  since  the  increase  in  duties  by  sixty 
per  cent. ,  the  balance  began  to  be  in  her  favour,  but 
not  sufficiently  to  maintain  her  gold  reserve  intact. 


56  Russia 

Wishnegradsky  began  to  apply  the  tax  screw.  In 
that  way  he  obtained  an  additional  revenue  of  fifty 
million  roubles.  He  also  rigorously  enforced  payment 
of  delinquent  taxes,  always  one  of  the  distressing  fea- 
tures of  Russian  finances.  In  that  way  he  compelled 
the  Russian  peasant  to  sell  his  surplus  of  agricultural 
produce  in  the  fall;  often,  too,  the  peasant  had  to  sell 
more  than  he  could  afford  in  order  to  make  up  the 
amount  of  his  taxes.  That  increased  very  naturally 
the  export  figures.  The  percentage  of  the  harvest  ex- 
ported to  neighbouring  countries  rose  during  his  admin- 
istration from  fifteen  to  twenty-two  per  cent.  Cereals 
had  always  played  a  great  part  in  Russia's  exports,  but 
under  Wishnegradsky  they  first  assumed  that  degree 
of  importance  which  they  have  since  maintained.  The 
holders  of  estates,  nobles  most  of  them,  were  likewise 
encouraged  to  export,  a  thing  made  easy  by  the  grow- 
ing burden  of  their  own  debts.  Wishnegradsky  secured 
special  railroad  tariffs,  and  introduced  a  differential  tariff 
for  cereals,  so  that  the  latter  could  be  carried  at  a  profit 
from  the  interior  to  the  export  harbours  on  the  Baltic, 
chiefly  Libau,  Reval,  and  Riga.  In  other  words,  he 
created  a  premium  for  cereal  exports,  and  he  succeeded 
with  it.  In  the  same  successful  manner  he  dammed  the 
imports;  he  raised  in  1887  the  duties  on  coal,  iron,  tea, 
and  other  necessaries,  and  in  1890  he  once  more  raised 
the  duties  by  a  general  average  of  twenty  per  cent.  In 
1 89 1  he  put  a  prohibitive  duty  on  a  great  many  articles 
which  the  nascent  Russian  industry  was  producing. 


Russian  Finances  57 

By  measures  such  as  these  he  contrived  to  raise  the 
Russian  exports  in  cereals  from  312  milHon  pood  to  442 
million  pood  yearly.  The  balance  of  trade  rose  from  66 
to  307  million  roubles  in  Russia's  favour.  He  likewise 
converted  a  large  part  of  the  Russian  foreign  debt  from 
gold  to  paper  interest.  Nevertheless,  even  during  his 
administration,  the  national  debt  itself  rose. 

Viewed  purely  financially  Wishnegradsky's  success 
was  brilliant.  The  chronic  deficit  in  the  budget  disap- 
peared; he  established  an  average  annual  surplus  of 
41^  million  roubles.  He  was  enabled  to  pay  the  in- 
terest on  the  foreign  debt  without  straining  at  all  the 
national  finances.  During  his  term,  1887-1893,  the 
gold  reserve  rose  rapidly,  from  281  to  782  millions. 
Viewed  from  the  point  of  national  economy  the  tale 
was  different;  for  the  forcing  of  the  exports  produced 
unhealthy  conditions  in  agriculture,  and  the  additional 
taxes  were  severely  felt  by  an  impoverished  peasantry. 
S.  Golovine,  a  noted  Russian  economist,  puts  a  large 
part  of  the  blame  for  the  present  desperate  condition 
of  Russian  agriculture  on  the  shoulders  of  Wish- 
negradsky. 

And  indeed  the  experience  of  the  year  1891  seems  to 
bear  him  out.  There  was  a  deficient  crop  that  year, 
and  famine  stalked  through  the  land.  The  Russian 
moujiks  (peasants),  with  their  crops  sold  for  taxes  and 
with  absolutely  no  reserve  in  either  savings  or  surplus 
foodstuffs,  were  starving  by  the  million.  The  govern- 
ment had  to  sacrifice  162  milHons  to  feed  them,  and 


58  Russia 

export  sank  considerably  in  1892.  In  any  event,  how- 
ever, Russian  national  finances  could  now  bear  better 
such  extraordinary  expenditures  and  losses.  In  the 
following  year  the  rising  figures  for  export  set  in  once 
more,  and  when  Wishnegradsky  left  ofi&ce  his  suc- 
cessor, De  Witte,  found  the  state  treasury  in  a  healthy 
condition. 

The  new  finance  minister  found  a  national  debt 
amounting  to  4571  millions,  and  interest  on  this  of 
241  >^  millions.  A  part  of  the  229  millions  which 
Wishnegradsky  had  added  to  the  national  debt  had 
been  secured  in  foreign  parts,  and  had,  therefore,  to  be 
redeemed  and  paid  interest  on  in  gold.  The  growing 
demand  in  Russia  for  every  kind  of  machinery  (par- 
ticularly agricultural)  and  other  foreign  industrial  pro- 
ducts, had  also  to  be  met  by  gold  payments.  Despite 
the  fact  that  the  annual  balance  of  trade  had  been  for 
years,  save  in  the  famine  year  of  189 1,  largely  in  Rus- 
sia's favour,  the  country  was  threatened  with  the 
danger  of  paying  out  in  gold  more  than  the  amount 
of  the  yellow  metal  coming  in ;  and  if  no  vigorous  check 
was  interposed,  the  national  finances  would  easily  re- 
vert to  former  deplorable  conditions. 

The  export  of  cereals,  as  pointed  out  before,  had 
been  pushed  by  Wishnegradsky  to  the  utmost.  When 
the  deficient  crop  and  the  famine  of  1891  overtook  the 
country,  the  whip  of  the  pitiless  tax  collector  was  still 
raised  over  the  head  of  the  pauperised  peasant.  The 
United  States  at  that  time  came  to  the  aid  of  the  starv- 


Russian  Finances  59 

ing,  sending  as  a  free  gift  to  the  Baltic  harbours,  for 
distribution  through  the  interior  famine  districts,  large 
vessels  laden  with  corn.  Nevertheless,  there  had  been 
large  and  growing  tax  delinquencies.  These  amounted 
in  1893,  so  far  as  the  peasantry  were  concerned,  to 
iigys  million  roubles  for  the  forty-six  "  governments" 
(large  districts  or  provinces)  mostly  affected.  This 
could  only  be  interpreted  as  a  most  ominous  indication 
of  the  decreasing  ability  of  the  rural  population  to  pay 
their  taxes,  and  this  rural  population  was  more  than 
ninety  per  cent,  of  the  whole  in  the  districts  spoken  of, 
that  is,  the  very  heart  of  Russia. 

The  immense  foreign  debt  of  Russia  was  another 
great  evil.  This  fact  had  long  ago  been  recognised  by 
Russian  statesmen.  One  of  the  best  of  her  financiers. 
Count  Cancrin,  during  his  financial  administration, 
1 823- 1 844,  had  pointed  this  out  very  clearly.  In  an 
illuminating  memorial  to  his  imperial  master,  Count 
Cancrin  had  stated  ' '  that  the  state  should  fall  back  on 
foreign  loans  only  in  cases  of  the  most  urgent  need." 
But  all  theoretical  recognition  of  these  dangers  was 
futile  in  preventing  the  constant  increase  of  Russia's 
foreign  debt,  because  of  these  two  facts:  the  aggress- 
ive and  expansive  policy  of  Russia,  necessitating  large 
armies  and  enormous  war  expense,  and  the  great  lack 
of  mobile  capital  in  the  country  itself. 

M.  de  Witte  saw  these  things  very  clearly.  He  co- 
incided in  principle  with  his  predecessor's  financial 
scheme  of  exploiting  the  productive  energies  of  the 


6o  Russia 

country  for  fiscal  purposes.  But  his  programme  went 
much  farther  in  this  direction,  as  we  shall  see.  Mean- 
while he  recognised  that,  to  obtain  taxes  enough  for  his 
purposes  of  industrially  developing  Russia,  it  became 
necessary  to  increase  the  sources  of  productivity.  It 
was  his  intention  to  raise  Russia  to  the  heights  of  a 
European  civilised  state.  And,  in  true  Russian  fashion, 
this  intention  of  his  was  to  be  realised  at  once,  without 
delay,  without  the  patient,  slow,  organic  work  which 
the  case  really  demanded. 

One  can  easily  understand  Witte  in  this.  Of  humble 
birth,  of  German  blood,  he  was  entirely  without  those 
powerful  connections  at  court  which  high  lineage  and 
tradition  would  have  secured  for  him.  He  had  made 
his  way  up  the  steep  ladder  of  the  Russian  tchin  by  the 
sheer  force  of  his  unusual  abilities  and  by  his  phe- 
nomenal energy  and  capacity  for  hard  work.  As  an 
administrator  there  has  perhaps  not  been  his  equal  in 
Russian  internal  history.  His  touch  with  European 
thought  and  European  industrial  methods  was  even 
more  intimate  than  his  knowledge  of  Russia  and  the 
Russians.  To  hold  himself  on  that  eminence  to  which 
he  had  climbed,  to  preserve  the  favour  and  confidence 
of  his  master  and  the  nation,  he  had  to  do  things 
in  a  hurry.  Sweeping  reforms,  such  as  those  in  the 
early  sixties,  were  not  to  be  dreamed  of.  That  he  saw 
clearly.  To  serve  his  ambition  and  his  country  alike, 
to  the  best  of  his  ability,  he  was  compelled  to  act  with 
despatch,  to  bring  about  immediate  results.     Only  then 


Russian  Finances  6i 

would  the  native  Russian  element,  the  powerful  Old- 
Russian  party,  tolerate  or  support  him  in  his  far- 
sighted  schemes.  National  Russian  pride  would  admit 
of  no  delay,  would  not  patiently  await  the  slow  fruits 
of  more  conservative  yet  more  lasting  measures  than 
those  Witte  had  to  adopt. 

Both  by  Lis  writings  for  various  publications  in 
Russia  and  Germany,  and  by  word  of  mouth  it  results 
quite  clearly  that  the  above  considerations  were  the 
guiding  ones  with  M.  de  Witte.  He  knew  that  to  in- 
crease the  productivity  of  agriculture  in  Russia  by 
state  help  (the  only  really  feasible  way  of  putting 
Russia,  a  country  having  an  agricultural  population 
of  ninety-five  per  cent.)  on  a  permanently  sound  basis 
would  at  best  be  the  work  of  many  years.  He  also 
knew  that  a  thorough  agrarian  reform  could  not  be 
the  task  of  the  financial  minister  alone,  but  needed 
the  sympathetic  and  energetic  co-operation  of  his  col- 
leagues. Yet  they  were  against  such  reforms;  they 
even  considered  them  harmful  and  irrealisable.  The 
reason  for  this,  again,  was  that  every  thorough  agrarian 
reform  in  Russia,  to  accomplish  permanent  benefit,  at 
once  encounters  grave  questions  of  political  principle, 
such  as  communal  ownership  and  joint-tax  responsi- 
bility, the  whole-tax  system,  rural  schools,  and  pro- 
vincial self-government.  All  these  questions  were 
answered  by  Witte' s  colleagues  in  diflferent  waj'S. 

Witte,  therefore,  at  first  centred  his  attention  on  the 
steady  increase  of  Russia's  gold  reserve  and  on  thereby 


62  Russia 

fixing  the  current  value  of  the  rouble,  having  in  mind 
the  adoption  of  the  gold  standard.  He  had  at  the  time 
when  he  assumed  charge  ot  aJBfairs  some  581^  millions 
in  gold  in  the  fireproof  cellars  of  the  Russian  state 
bank.  Export  began  to  increase.  But  it  was  rather 
slow  work,  in  no  way  corresponding  to  Witte's  wishes. 

Thus  M.  de  Witte  plunged  into  a  series  of  innova- 
tions. The  currency  question  was  regulated  by  him  by 
purchase  and  sale  of  gold  drafts.  The  taxes  were  in- 
creased by  seventy  millions  yearly.  The  tariflf  war 
with  Germany  was  ended  by  a  commercial  treaty, 
lyoan  after  loan  was  placed  with  foreign  nations. 

Witte  made  himself  absolute  master  of  Russia's 
entire  money  business.  He  took  not  only  the  state 
bank  completely  under  his  wings,  but  he  also  brought 
all  the  private  banks  under  his  control.  He  secured 
for  himself  the  right  to  depose  directors  of  banks  not 
in  consonance  with  his  ideas,  to  dismiss  bank  agents  in- 
stantly, to  close  banks,  and  exchange  houses  similarly. 
He  prohibited  on  pain  of  heavy  fine  all  speculation  in 
gold  and  gold  values.  He  forced  the  private  banks  to 
leave  entirely  to  him  for  a  time  all  their  foreign  money 
business,  drafts  and  checks  going  exclusively  through 
the  state  bank.  The  state  bank  itself  he  compelled  by 
the  statute  of  1894  henceforth  to  further  Russian  com- 
merce less  than  Russian  industry  and  the  bourse  opera- 
tions of  the  minister.  At  the  same  time  he  began  to 
increase  the  gold  reserve. 

At  the  beginning  of  1896  Witte  deemed  the  time  ripe 


Russian  Finances  63 

for  undertaking  the  first  steps  looking  towards  the 
adoption  of  the  gold  standard.  By  the  terms  of  a 
special  law  issued  at  that  time  he  commenced  redeem- 
ing paper  notes  in  gold,  the  gold  reserve  meanwhile 
having  risen  to  630  millions.  To  insure  the  permanent 
working  of  the  gold  reserve,  Witte  had,  of  course,  to 
take  care  that  the  balance  of  trade  would  remain  in 
Russia's  favour.  For  Russia,  as  pointed  out  before,  is 
very  differently  situated  from  countries  like  England, 
Germany,  France,  and  of  late  the  United  States,  in  the 
matter  of  mobile  capital,  she  being  extremely  poor  in 
cash  money,  and  being  obliged  besides,  by  reason  of 
the  gold  interest  on  her  foreign  debt,  to  pay  out  regu- 
larly a  large  portion  of  her  gold  receipts  into  foreign 
hands.  If  Kngland,  for  instance,  is  able  to  have  (as 
she  did  in  1899)  a  balance  of  trade  against  her  amount- 
ing to  $750,000,000,  she  makes  up  for  this  by  her 
ownership  of  foreign  values.  Russia  has  no  such  for- 
eign values;  indeed,  she  represents  the  exact  opposite. 
And  of  her  own  industry,  small  as  it  was,  a  large  por- 
tion of  its  earnings  left  again  the  confines  of  Russia  in 
the  shape  of  interest  and  dividends  paid  to  foreign 
creditors  and  shareholders.  This  is  what  is  popularly 
termed  in  Russia  the  gold  tribute,  and  which  all  Rus- 
sian economists  feel  as  one  of  the  greatest  curses  from 
which  their  country  suffers.  To  make  up  for  all  these 
disadvantages  only  one  way  was  left  to  Russia  and 
Witte,  namely,  to  see  to  it  that  there  was  always  a 
large  excess  of  exports  over  imports. 


64  Russia 

In  his  budget  report  for  1898,  Witte  gives  expression 
to  his  confidence  in  Russia's  elasticity  by  saying  that 
he  had  engaged  in  his  somewhat  risky  operations  "  in 
the  firm  faith  in  the  steady  development  of  Russia's 
productive  forces." 

In  the  meantime  the  export  trade  fluctuated  a  good 
deal.  The  balance  of  trade  in  Russia's  favour  sank  in 
1896  to  less  than  one  hundred  millions,  and  for  the 
period  of  1893-1898  it  averaged  only  143  millions. 

Witte  had  set  himself,  as  one  of  his  chief  tasks,  the 
rapid  industrial  development  of  the  country.  By  that 
he  meant  to  stop  or  at  least  greatly  diminish  the  con- 
stant outflow  of  many  millions  of  gold  in  payment  of 
foreign-made  rails  and  rolling  stock,  agricultural  and 
industrial  machinery,  chemicals,  and  other  things.  He 
intended  to  create  a  native  industry  which  would  give 
wages  to  the  peasant  during  his  enforced  idleness 
throughout  the  long  Russian  winter,  and  fortunes  to 
the  enterprising  owners  of  factories.  In  this  he  also 
had  in  view  the  prospect  of  winning  for  the  state  new 
taxable  property.  To  carry  out  his  ideas  he  needed, 
however,  much  money,  only  to  be  obtained  in  foreign 
parts,  money  with  which  to  bring  the  railroads  under 
the  ownership  of  the  government,  to  maintain  the  gold 
standard,  and  to  put  the  Russian  nobility,  sadly  impov- 
erished, and  the  pauperised  peasantry  again  on  a  flour- 
ishing basis.  This  in  large  outlines  was  and  is  Witte's 
financial  polic5\  He  had,  therefore,  to  abandon  Wishne- 
gradsky's  cautious  reserve  and  to  pile  loan  upon  loan. 


Russian  Finances  65 

The  Dual  Alliance  came  to  Witte's  aid.  It  opened 
for  Russia  the  great  money  market  of  France.  Indeed, 
from  his  particular  point  of  view,  the  purely  financial 
one,  Russia  could  not  have  had  a  better  ally.  The 
French  are  a  saving  nation.  Untold  millions  were  hid- 
den away,  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  rural 
France,  in  the  proverbial  stocking  of  the  French  peas- 
ant and  small  rentier.  To  invest  these  immense  sums 
in  transoceanic  enterprises,  as  England  does,  is  not  to 
the  prudent  Frenchman's  taste.  But  to  loan  his  money, 
at  higher  interest  than  safe  investments  at  home  would 
have  brought  him,  to  the  political  ally,  the  dear  Rus- 
sian, the  only  friend  left  to  belle  France  in  the  whole  of 
Europe,  seemed  to  him  not  only  a  profitable,  but  still 
more  a  patriotic  undertaking.  Thus  it  was  that  French 
capital  has  gone  into  Russian  hands  since  1893  to  the 
tune  of  thousands  of  millions.  How  large  these  sums 
really  are,  it  is  impossible  to  tell,  since  no  reliable  data 
exist.  But  it  is  known  that  not  only  loan  after  loan  of 
the  Russian  government  has  been  placed  in  France,  but 
that  French  gold  (and  likewise  Belgian  to  an  almost 
incredible  extent)  has  privately  been  fructifying  the 
young  Russian  industry.  As  an  illustration  of  this 
the  fact  will  serve  that  French  and  Belgian  capital  to 
the  amount  of  1650  million  francs  (over  $300,000,000) 
has  been  invested  in  Russian  steel  and  iron  works 
alone.  By  such  means  as  these  it  was  unavoidable  that 
Russia,  and  particularly  Witte,  strengthened  the  politi- 
cal and  economical  hold  on  France.     It  is  claimed  that 


66  Russia 

the  totality  of  Frencli  money  which  has  gone  in  one 
form  or  another  to  Russia  during  the  past  eleven 
years  amounts  to  about  $1,700,000,000. 

A  certain  amount  of  recklessness  in  dealing  with 
such  enormous  sums  obtained  from  foreign  creditors 
can  be  distinctly  traced  in  M.  de  Witte's  operations. 
They  are  characterised  more  by  boldness  and  ingenu- 
ity than  by  prudence.  It  is  but  necessary  to  study 
his  own  budget  reports  to  become  convinced  of  this. 
In  them  he  declares  frankly,  again  and  again,  that 
this  foreign  capital  is  meant  to  increase  Russia's 
productivity,  and  that  as  to  the  rest  he  cares  very 
little  what  ultimatel}'  becomes  of  it.  There  is  not 
a  word  said  as  to  a  plan  of  his  own,  as  to  the  prob- 
ability or  even  possibility  of  ever  repaying  these  gigan- 
tic sums. 

And  why  should  he  not  be  frank  ?  What  palpable 
risk  does  Russia  run  in  the  matter  ?  Russia  is  not  a 
farm,  an  estate,  or  even  a  railroad  that  could  be  fore- 
closed on  a  mortgage.  There  is  no  tribunal,  not  even 
the  one  at  The  Hague,  which  could  compel  Russia  to 
pay  her  debts.  Should  the  time  come  that  Russia  was 
unable  to  pay  the  interest  or  the  sinking  fund  on  her 
sixty  thousand  verst  (about  forty-two  thousand  miles) 
of  railroads,  built  entirely  with  foreign  capital,  it  would 
indeed  be  a  very  difficult  task  to  force  payment.  And 
it  is  almost  as  difficult  seriously  to  blame  a  Russian 
Minister  for  having  utilised  to  the  full  the  confidence 
of  foreign  capitalists  in   a  magical    development  of 


Russian  Finances  67 

Russian  economical  conditions,  a  confidence  based  on 
scarcely  any  tangible  facts. 

Not  a  single  year  has  gone  since  M.  de  Witte  as- 
sumed charge  of  Russia's  finances  without  his  having 
placed  at  least  one  foreign  loan.  On  January  i,  1900, 
he  had  contrived  to  increase  the  Russian  national  debt 
by  1579  million  roubles.  It  had  grown  to  6150  mil- 
lions, requiring  annual  interest  and  sinking  fund  of  292 
millions.  He  also  began  to  operate  on  a  large  scale  in 
Russian  values,  especially  in  those  payable  in  gold, 
such  as  railroad  bonds,  shares  of  the  Agrarian  Bank 
for  the  Nobility,  and  other  securities.  He  sold  them  in 
foreign  parts.  Within  six  years,  of  the  two  kinds  of 
securities  spoken  of,  nine-tenths  went  over  the  frontier, 
and  in  1900  the  total  of  Russian  securities  in  foreign 
hands  amounted  to  3^2  billions  of  roubles,  requiring  140 
millions  in  interest.  But  all  this  had  brought  much 
gold  into  the  country.  In  Russia  itself  had  remained 
only  those  loans  redeemable  in  roubles  of  the  new  cur- 
rency. Of  the  latter  there  were  then  about  four  billions, 
and  Russians  held  2700  millions  of  it;  of  the  four-per- 
cents.  some  1503  millions  are  held  by  Russians. 

A  third  source  of  revenue  began  to  flow  for  Witte 
since  1895  in  the  rapidly  developing  industry,  promoted 
by  him  in  every  possible  way.  From  the  capitalistic 
Western  countries  gold  was  pouring  into  Russia  for  all 
sorts  of  industrial  enterprises,  at  the  very  least  at  the 
rate  of  one  hundred  million  roubles  yearly. 

The  Siberian  gold  mines  yielded  the  Russian  govern- 


68  Russia 

ment  a  matter  of  297  millions  from  1893  to  1898.  During 
the  same  period  Russia's  gold  reserve  increased  by  637 
millions,  and  on  January  i,  1897,  it  had  attained  a 
height  of  1247  millions.  The  old  paper  roubles  were 
redeemed  at  the  ratio  of  i  ^  paper  rouble  to  one  rouble 
in  gold.  All  Russia  was  amazed.  The  living  genera- 
tion had  never  seen  any  actual  Russian  imperials,  while 
very  old  people  had  seen  such  gold  pieces  only  as  a 
great  rarity.  And  now  gold  was  to  be  had  for  the 
mere  asking.  Witte's  fame  grew  to  gigantic  heights 
— the  innocent  moujik  thought  him  a  past  master  in  the 
black  art.  But  all  the  time  the  gold  reserve  rose.  On 
January  i,  1899,  there  were  1420  millions  of  it  in  the 
national  treasury,  while  banks  outside  Russia  had  de- 
posited with  them  another  180  millions  of  Russian  fiscal 
gold,  together  a  gold  surplus  of  1600  millions.  Within 
ten  years  Russia  had  reached  her  goal:  she  had  attained 
the  level  of  Western  financiering.  Financially,  too,  it 
seemed  she  had  become  a  great  power.  She  had  broken 
with  her  humiliating  dependence  upon  the  fluctuations 
of  foreign  money  markets.  It  looked  as  if  she  was  now 
to  hold  a  position  economically  corresponding  in  some 
measure  to  her  political  one. 

This  at  first  seemed  a  rational  conclusion.  The  facts 
and  figures  which  M.  de  Witte  very  well  understood 
how  to  manipulate,  looked  imposing.  Not  a  few  of 
the  cool-headed  moneyed  men  of  Europe  and  America 
allowed  their  judgment  to  go  astray  b}'  the  glittering 
tinsel  of  Russia's  financial  reports.      But  it  is  worth 


Russian  Finances  69 

while  to  examine  the  underlying  facts  a  little  more 
closely,  and  a  very  diflferent  conclusion  will  be  arrived 
at. 

For  one  thing,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  this 
apparent  immense  gold  surplus  consisted  in  reality  of 
new  debts;  that  the  debts  incurred  had  to  pay  interest 
and  sinking  fund,  and  that  the  gold  rouble,  swiftly  as 
it  had  run  into  Russia,  might  as  swiftly  run  out  of  it 
again,  that  is,  as  soon  as  the  productivity  of  the  nation 
should  relax.  True,  Witte  spent  many  wakeful  hours 
to  prevent  the  return  of  this  gold  whence  it  had  come. 
He  made  it  his  object  to  increase  production  in  Russia. 
Up  to  his  time  fully  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  total  popu- 
lation had  been  engaged  in  tilling  the  soil.  Russian 
export  consisted  of  ninety  per  cent,  of  raw  stuflfs;  eighty- 
five  per  cent,  in  1893  was  made  up  of  agricultural  pro- 
ducts. As  late  as  1898,  Witte  said  in  one  of  his 
speeches  that  Russian  agriculture  produced  scarcely 
any  capital  available  for  industrial  purposes.  And  yet 
capital  was  needed,  and  a  great  deal  of  it,  to  develop 
the  countr>'  industrially  and  to  make  it  more  or  less 
independent  of  that  foreign  industry  which  at  this  very 
time  was  making  strenuous  efforts  everywhere  to  reach 
unheard-of  heights,  both  in  bulk  and  quality.  Russia, 
he  knew,  was  rich  in  natural  resources;  there  is  no 
lack  of  coal,  iron,  and  petroleum.  He  now  proposed 
to  raise  these  treasures.     His  methods  were  skilful. 

In  1894  he  converted  a  billion  of  government  bonds, 
held  in  Russia  itself.     Those  bringing  five  per  cent. 


70  Russia 

were  redeemed  and  replaced  by  four-per-cents.  This 
operation  created  amazement  in  a  country  where  capital 
is  so  scarce  that  the  private  interest  rate  is  still  about 
ten  per  cent.  With  these  new  four-per-cents.  Witte 
managed  to  withdraw  not  only  the  five-per-cents.  but 
finally,  also,  the  four  per  cent,  gold  bonds,  selling  them 
all  in  foreign  money  markets.  The  internal  debt,  five- 
sixths  of  it,  was  converted  into  a  four  per  cent,  irre- 
deemable one.  The  capital  thus  liberated  turned 
towards  industrial  enterprises;  these  promised  higher 
returns.  Much  of  it,  too,  was  used  for  speculating 
purposes,  and  the  bourse  in  St.  Petersburg  developed 
on  parallel  lines  with  the  growth  of  stock  companies. 
Witte  had  done  what  he  wished  to  do.  He  drove  the 
mobile  capital  of  the  country  into  Russia's  new  indus- 
tries, and  in  so  doing  earned  new  revenues  for  the  state. 
With  a  lavish  hand  the  finance  minister  scattered  the 
money  of  the  state  to  nourish  industry.  Numerous 
banks  were  founded  and  aided  by  the  government; 
through  them  capital  was  advanced  for  industrial 
undertakings.  Technical  and  commercial  schools  were 
established  by  the  government  and  assisted  financially. 
Foreign  capital  followed  in  this  path  with  avidity. 
The  same  industrial  fever  which  raged  through  adjoin- 
ing Germany  and  in  the  United  States  had  seized  upon 
Russia.  It  flew  across  the  somnolent  Russian  steppes, 
as  it  had  flown  through  countries  industrially  more 
advanced.  Between  1894  and  1899,  927  stock  com- 
panies were  organised,  with  a  nominal  capital  of  1420 


Russian  Finances  71 

million  roubles;  the  actual  capital  is  estimated  at  be- 
tween 560  and  600  millions.  Of  these  companies  151 
were  wholly  foreign,  the  remainder  were  more  or  less 
assisted  by  foreign  capital.  But  the  government  itself 
did  much  more  than  this.  The  construction  of  new 
railroads,  of  naval  vessels,  and  the  financial  assistance 
given  the  merchant  marine,  all  furthered  immensely 
the  whole  iron  and  steel  industry  and  the  establishment 
of  factories  and  industrial  works  more  or  less  related. 

If  the  administration  of  Wishnegradsky  had  shown  a 
strong  tinge  of  commercialism,  the  one  of  M.  de  Witte 
became  purely  monopolistic.  The  whole  railroad  sys- 
tem in  Russia  passed  under  the  control  of  the  govern- 
ment. Within  the  ten  years  from  1892  to  1902  Witte 
expended  a  matter  of  2252  million  roubles  in  enlarging 
the  state  network  of  railroads.  By  1897  some  four  bil- 
lions of  roubles,  nearly  all  foreign  capital,  had  been 
invested  in  state  and  private  railroads.  For  these  pur- 
poses Witte,  by  1900,  had  enlarged  the  national  debt  by 
over  a  billion  and  had  increased  the  ' '  gold  tribute ' '  to 
the  foreigner  by  forty  millions  yearly.  On  January  i, 
1902,  the  budget  report  of  Prince  Hilkoflf,  the  minister 
of  railroads,  mentioned  the  fact  that  the  entire  railroad 
system  had  attained  a  length  of  sixty  thousand  verst 
(about  forty-two  thousand  miles),'  of  which  the  gov- 
ernment roads  represented  two- thirds.  But  even  the 
private  roads  were  practically  government  ones,  since 

'Against  221,000  in  the  United  States,  less  than  half  the  size 
of  Russia. 


72  Russia 

even  as  early  as  1897  almost  uinety-five  per  cent,  of  the 
capital  invested  in  the  railroads,  private  and  state,  had 
come  from  the  national  treasury.  Since  then  the  con- 
struction of  the  great  Asiatic  railroads, — especially  those 
through  Siberia  and  Manchuria, — and  the  purchase  by 
the  government  of  the  Moscow-Arkhangel  Railroad, 
have  made  the  share  of  private  capital  in  Russia's  rail- 
road system  a  minimal  one. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Russian  railroads,  viewing 
them  in  their  entirety,  have  been  too  expensive  in  their 
construction.  Statements  as  to  their  cost  per  verst 
differ  materially  in  various  budgets  and  government 
reports.  But  taking  even  the  highest  statement  (and 
probably  the  most  reliable),  that  of  Prince  Hilkoff,  the 
cost  per  verst  is  only  109,500  roubles.  This  compares 
very  favourably  v^rith  other  countries.  But  these  figures 
antedate  the  completion  of  the  Siberian  Railroad  and 
its  branches  into  Manchuria,  and  both  of  them  have 
come  enormously  high.  Expert  opinion  is  to  the  effect 
that  these  new  roads,  costing  about  $750,000,000,  could 
be  duplicated  for  half  that  amount.  This  is  due  in 
large  measure  to  the  fact  that  in  the  building  of  these 
Far  Asiatic  roads  Russian  material  and  Russian  labour 
have  been  employed  much  more  extensively  than  in  the 
building  of  the  older  roads.  In  other  words,  the  ex- 
cessive expense  is  an  indirect  outgrowth  of  Witte's  pet 
programme,  the  extreme  favouring  of  Russian  industry. 
In  another  part  of  this  book  the  proof  for  this  will  be 
given  more  in  detail. 


Russian  Finances  73 

But  do  the  Russian  railroads  at  least  pay  ?  A  definite 
answer  to  that  question  is  rather  difficult.  Both  Witte 
and  Prince  HilkoflF  in  this  respect  contradict  each  other 
in  a  number  of  their  reports,  and  the  figures  published 
by  each  one  of  them  are  never  the  same  in  different  re- 
ports. Allowance  must  be  made  for  the  peculiar  posi- 
tion of  Russia,  and  Witte  himself  as  Russia's  finance 
minister,  depending  as  they  do  so  much  on  the  good 
opinion  of  foreign  money  markets.  In  one  of  Witte's 
official  reports,  for  instance,  published  in  French  in  his 
special  organ,  the  Bulletin  Russe  de  Statistique  Finan- 
alre  for  1901,  the  minister  figures  out  a  net  profit  of 
four  hundred  million  francs,  or  about  4^^  per  cent,  on 
the  invested  capital.  This  report,  it  is  almost  super- 
fluous to  say,  was  intended  specially  for  the  consump- 
tion of  Witte's  French  friends.  It  does  not  tally  at  all 
with  other  reports  by  him,  and  still  less  does  it  do  so 
with  the  reports  of  Prince  HilkofF.  In  Witte's  budget 
report  for  1902,  likewise  intended  largely  for  effect  on 
foreign  money  markets,  he  still  claims  a  "  small  net 
profit"  for  the  Russian  railroad  system  as  a  whole, 
although  he  admits  a  considerable  deficit  for  the 
Siberian  Road. 

The  most  reliable,  probably,  of  all  the  Russian  official 
reports  bearing  on  this  matter  is  to  be  found  in  the  de- 
tailed statement  of  the  "  Imperial  Control"  for  1900. 
In  this  the  receipts  from  government  and  private  roads 
are  stated  to  be  374  millions,  the  expenditures  405  mil- 
lions, leaving  a  deficit  of  thirty-one  millions.     This 


74  Russia 

deficit  in  the  nature  of  things  must  have  increased 
since,  because  the  Siberian  and  Manchurian  Railroads 
have  been  added,  and  they,  as  pointed  out  before,  are 
operated  at  a  very  large  loss. 

Again,  in  that  very  same  organ  of  Witte's  referred 
to  above,  but  at  another  time,  occurs  the  following 
statement:  "For  the  five  years  1896- 1900  the  state 
suffered  an  annual  loss  of  thirteen  million  roubles  from 
the  operation  of  the  entire  Russian  railroad  system." 

These  statements,  while  probably  rather  under  than 
above  the  truth,  come  evidently  much  nearer  the  mark. 
All  the  available  facts  point  to  a  considerable  loss  in 
the  operation  of  Russia's  roads.  In  European  Russia 
the  roadbed  conditions  are  more  favourable,  but  in  Asi- 
atic Russia  these  and  the  climatic  conditions  are  ex- 
tremely inauspicious.  To  that  must  be  added  the  fact 
that  thousands  of  miles  of  road  must  be  protected  by 
strong  detachments  of  soldiers. 

Meanwhile  new  loans  are  taken  up  and  new  roads 
are  being  built.  The  budget  of  1902  shows  for  the 
railroads  in  ordinary  expenditures  398,625,050  roubles, 
and  extraordinary  ones  165,658,493  roubles.  This 
gives  a  total  of  564,283,543  roubles,  and  of  this  for  new 
railroads  170)^  millions.  To  this  must  be  added  large 
sums  contributed  by  private  corporations  for  railroad 
building  purposes.  All  these  sums  represent  almost 
entirely  capital  borrowed  of  foreign  nations.  Passenger 
fares  are  low  on  Russian  railroads  ;  the  ' '  zone ' '  system 
prevails  there,  as  it  does  in  Hungary.     Fares  have  to 


Russian  Finances  75 

be  low  in  order  to  attract  patronage  from  the  masses. 
Freight  tariffs  vary  much;  on  some  of  the  main  lines 
and  on  certain  goods  and  cereals,  especially  in  the 
autumn,  freight  transportation  is  even  lower  than 
it  is  in  the  United  States.  On  the  other  hand, 
freight  charges  are  excessive  on  some  of  the  lines. 
There  is  no  uniform  system  of  any  kind.  Taken  as  a 
whole,  however,  the  returns  paid  per  verst  or  mile  by 
the  Russian  railroads  remain  far  below  those  of  either 
the  United  States,  England,  or  Germany.  There  is  no 
prospect,  so  far  as  eye  can  see,  for  Russia's  railroads  to 
pay  within  a  decade  or  two.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  even  the  central  provinces  of  Russia  are  thinly 
populated  when  comparison  is  made  with  European 
countries,  and  that  far  more  than  half  of  Russia's 
railroad  system  runs  through  territory  more  sparsely 
settled  than  the  western  parts  of  the  United  States  on 
either  side  of  the  Rockies. 

If  all  these  truths  were  generally  recognised  by  thou- 
sands of  small  and  large  capitalists  in  France,  Germany, 
the  United  States,  Belgium,  Holland,  and  other  coun- 
tries, it  is  safe  to  say  that  M.  de  Witte  as  a  financial 
fisherman  would  not  have  been  nearly  so  successful  as 
he  has  been  in  drawing  untold  millions  of  solid  gold 
from  the  pockets  of  an  unwary  public.  The  simple 
truth  is,  that  Witte,  financial  genius  of  the  highest 
order  as  he  is  popularly  deemed,  has  for  the  past  ten 
years  been  "bamboozling"  the  dear  public  in  both 
hemispheres,  holding  out  as  a  brilliant  bait  the  alleged 


76  Russia 

"enormous  productivity  "  of  Russia.     It  may  be— there 
is  no  telling — that  Witte  has  been  acting  in  the  main  in 
good  faith,  but  on  the  face  of  the  facts  this  assumption 
lacks  plausibility.     So  shrewd  a  man  as  he,  with  the 
immense  sources  of  information  which  he  has  to  draw 
upon,  cannot  have  remained  blind  during  his  long  term 
of  office  to  the  actual  condition  of  affairs.     True,  even 
now,  after  ten  years  of  ceaseless  disappointment  in  the 
matter  of  this  much- vaunted  "  Russian  productivity," 
he  sticks  to  his  text.     The  same  phrase  with  which  he 
has  conjured  billions  out  of  the  pockets  of  foreign 
capitalists,  still  occurs  in  his  latest  reports  and  budgets. 
In  1895  M.  de  Witte  took  preparatory  steps  to  realise 
his  "  spirit  monopoly."     The  scheme  has  now  been  in 
operation  for  some  years.     In  his  budget  report  of  1899 
he  said  that ' '  the  transformation  of  the  system  of  levy- 
ing the  tax  on  spirits  had  not  been  dictated  by  the  in- 
tention of  thereby  increasing  the  government  revenues." 
However  that  may  be,  certain   it  is   that   this  new 
monopolistic  measure  of  his  has  had  just  that  eflfect. 
The  tax  has  increased  a  round  166  miUions,  rising  from 
322  to  488  millions  (in  1901).     For  1902  his  revenues 
from  the  fiscal  sale  of  vodka  (for  practically  the  whole 
tax  is  derived  from  this  abominable  potato  spirit)  have 
reached  the  sum  of  497^  million  roubles.     This  sum 
seems  all  the  greater  when  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  it  is 
derived  almost  entirely  from  the  pauperised  Russian 
peasant,  a  human  being  whose  sole  pleasure  in  life  con- 
sists in  seeking  blissful  oblivion  of  the  harsh  realities 


Russian  Finances  77 

of  existence  by  as  frequent  overindulgence  in  this  vile 
liquor  as  the  state  of  his  pocketbook  will  at  all  admit. 
Not  only  that,  however,  but  strange  to  say,  a  thing 
almost  unparalleled  in  Russian  finances,  the  actual  li- 
quor revenues  have  every  year  exceeded  governmental 
expectations;  for  1901  the  figure  in  excess  was  ^ij4 
million  roubles.  Intentional  or  otherwise,  the  Russian 
governmental  monopoly  on  the  sale  of  spirituous  and 
fermented  liquor  has  had  the  effect  of  promoting  drunk- 
enness. The  reasons  for  this  deplorable  fact,  simple  as 
they  are,  will  be  given  in  another  chapter.  In  any 
event,  the  creator  of  this  monopoly,  M.  de  Witte,  can- 
not justly  take  credit  to  himself,  as  he  did  in  his  earlier 
reports,  for  having  introduced  a  social  reform  by  con- 
fining the  sale  of  liquor  exclusively  to  government 
agents. 

Besides  the  railroads  and  the  liquor  monopoly,  Witte 
has  utilised  to  the  full  other  sources  of  revenue,  such 
as  the  postal  and  telegraph  department,  fiscal  forests 
and  mines,  crown  estates,  etc.  From  these  various 
sources  he  has  received  forty  per  cent,  of  the  ordinary 
receipts  for  use  in  his  department  (amounting  to  693 
millions  in  1901),  and  for  1902  even  fifty-seven  per 
cent,  (totalling  1031  millions).  Russia  in  these  respects, 
again,  is  an  exceptional  country.  Fiscal  property  and 
fiscal  administration  of  lands  and  institutions  have 
taken  there  proportions  unequalled  in  any  other  country, 
and  reaching  almost  the  ideals  of  state  sociaHsm. 

The  Russian  State  or  Imperial  Bank,  to  which  since 


78  Russia 

1897  b^s  been  left  entirely  the  issue  of  paper  money  and 
in  which  is  concentrated  the  financial  business  of  the 
empire,  is  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the  finance  minister. 
Under  his  control,  too,  are  the  governmental  savings 
banks  of  Russia,  with  their  joint  deposits  of  seven 
hundred  millions.  Private  and  peasant  savings  banks 
have  been  hampered  purposely  by  him  in  their  develop- 
ment, and  individual  deposits  there  must  not  exceed 
fifty  roubles,  thus  forcing  the  depositor  to  have  recourse 
to  the  institutions  favoured  by  him. 

Taking  all  these  facts  into  consideration,  it  is  seen 
that  the  powers  in  the  hands  of  this  one  man,  Witte, 
are  well-nigh  absolute,  so  far  as  financial  manipulation 
of  the  vast  empire's  material  resources  is  concerned. 

Nevertheless,  even  Witte  has  been  unable  to  make 
of  Russia  a  financially  potent  country.  To  attain  his 
ends  he  has  killed  the  goose  that  lays  the  golden  eggs 
— agriculture.  This  all-important  circumstance  will  be 
shown  in  detail  elsewhere  in  this  book.  But  leaving 
that  consideration  aside  in  this  present  argument,  the 
fact  remains  that,  despite  France's  ardent  political  love 
for  Russia,  the  time  has  come  when  even  that  nation's 
purse-strings  are  being  drawn  tighter.  It  did  not  even 
require  the  present  war  to  show  that.  The  fact  became 
patent  several  years  ago.  A  loan  of  181  million  roubles 
which  Witte,  in  1901,  had  vainly  attempted  to  raise  in 
Paris,  he  was  forced  to  place  in  Germany  and  Holland. 
But  to  enable  him  to  do  so  the  mere  guarantee  of  the 
Russian  government  did  not  sufiice;  he  had  to  pledge 


Russian  Finances  79 

as  security  for  this  loan  Russia's  share  of  the  war  in- 
demnity due  from  China  on  account  of  the  Boxer  rising, 
a  thing  which  he  had  refused  to  do  in  Paris.  A  short 
while  ago,  just  a  few  days  after  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  with  Japan,  it  was  reported  from  St.  Petersburg 
that  Witte  was  experiencing  great  diflSculty  in  raising 
a  war  loan  of  only  one  hundred  million  roubles. 
These  and  other  analogous  facts  show  plainly  enough 
for  him  who  will  see  that  Russia's  borrowing  powers 
with  Western  nations  are  on  the  wane.  In  the  event 
of  Russia's  defeat  in  this  present  war  her  financial 
position  will  be  nothing  less  than  frightful.  She 
would  be  utterly  incapable  of  raising  a  large  war  in- 
demnity, such  as  Japan  doubtless  would  exact,  except 
at  unheard-of  sacrifice.  Her  industry  has  practically 
collapsed  even  now.  Foreign  investors  have  lost  in 
Russian  industrial  ventures  during  the  past  six  or 
seven  years  sums  aggregating  six  or  seven  hundred 
million  roubles,  and  new  foreign  capital  will  be  more 
cautious  in  the  future.  With  every  national  resource 
strained  to  the  last  point  under  the  strenuous  financial 
policy  of  M.  de  Witte  in  times  of  deep  peace,  the  deli- 
cate fabric  which  it  has  taken  him  ten  years  to  erect 
will  surely  be  shaken  to  its  foundations  or  topple  over 
during  a  long  and  costly  war  in  Far  Asia.  This  much 
indeed  seems  certain  now.  Will  France  and  the  other 
foreign  creditors  of  Russia  throw  other  billions  of  good 
money  into  the  wreck  ? 

Still,  on  the  surface,  and  placing  undue  reliance  on 


8o  Russia 

the  budget  figures  with  which  Russia's  financial  genius 
knows  so  well  how  to  juggle,  the  financial  conditions  of 
the  empire  seem  sound  enough.  Here  are  some  of  these 
figures:  In  the  year  1889  (during  Wishnegradsky's 
term)  the  national  expenditures  amounted  to  867 >^ 
millions;  in  1900  they  had  risen  to  1889  millions;  for 
1902  they  were  1,946,572,000  roubles.  Within  the  six 
years  of  1895- 1900  the  expenditures  rose  annually  by 
125  millions.  These  expenditures,  gigantic  as  they 
seem  for  even  so  vast  an  empire,  were  considerably  ex- 
ceeded by  the  receipts.  Almost  every  year  a  good-sized 
surplus  was  left  in  the  national  treasury,  although  on 
several  occasions,  such  as  famihes  and  the  like,  this 
surplus  was  again  eaten  up.  But  more  important  is 
the  fact  that  Witte  was  compelled  to  seek  every  year 
for  a  new  loan  in  foreign  countries.  The  one  of  1901 
(of  435  million  francs)  was  raised  with  diflSculty,  and 
this  was  still  more  the  case  with  subsequent  ones. 
Not  frankly  avowed  loans,  but  in  their  nature  nothing 
else,  were  Witte' s  sales  of  railroad  bonds.  Quite  re- 
cently he  sold  values  of  this  description  in  Berlin  to  the 
amount  of  eighty  million  marks  (about  $20,000,000). 
Veiled  loans  of  a  similar  nature  have  not  figured  in 
their  true  light  in  his  published  reports.  In  this  re- 
spect, as  in  several  other  important  ones,  these  ofl&cial 
documents  have  all  along  been  grossly  misleading. 

Taking  the  word  of  an  eminent  Russian  economist, 
S.  Golovine,  for  it — and  in  his  writings  he  quotes  the 
facts  and  figures  in  detail,  and  they  have  never  been 


Russian  Finances  8i 

disputed  in  Russia — the  Russian  nation  in  1902  owed 
at  home  and  to  foreign  countries  and  individual  for- 
eigners a  gross  total  of  8J^  billion  roubles.  Deducting 
from  this  mammoth  sum  private  liabilities  and  retain- 
ing only  those  of  the  government,  we  see  them  stated 
by  Witte  himself  in  his  budget  report  of  1902  at  6497 
million  roubles.  Against  it  he  places  the  safe  fiscal 
investments  at  4614  million  roubles,  leaving  an  unse- 
cured debt  of  1882  million  roubles.  But  this  statement 
of  Witte' s  must  not  go  unchallenged.  It  is  contra- 
dicted by  almost  everybody  and  everything  bearing  on 
the  case.  Above  all,  these  figures  do  not  tally  with 
previous  ones  given  by  himself.  There  seems  to  be  a 
divergence  of  about  1331  millions.  But  this  is  merely 
one  instance  out  of  many  showing  the  utter  impossi- 
bility of  making  the  facts  square  with  Witte' s  oflBcial 
reports.  For  instance,  by  a  simple  piece  of  arithmetic 
it  can  be  shown  that  the  value  placed  by  Witte  on  the 
state  railroads,  namely,  3551  million  roubles,  is  not  the 
correct  one.  The  true  value  of  any  property  does  not 
alone  consist  in  the  capital  invested,  but  in  the  profit 
which  it  brings.  The  Russian  railroads  yield  not  only 
no  profit,  but  form  annually  a  considerable  net  expense 
to  the  government.  There  are  a  number  of  other  im- 
portant items  in  the  budget  spoken  of  which  are  simi- 
larly reducible  to  intentional  or  unintentional  error. 
However,  there  are  other  significant  facts  in  Russia's 
finances.  The  veiled  loans  in  the  shape  of  Russian 
railroad  bonds  sold  in  foreign  cities  were  already  hinted 

6 


82  Russia 

at.  It  may  show  how  large  an  item  they  alone  form 
to  mention  that  since  1894  such  bonds  to  the  amount 
of  900  million  marks  (about  $220,000,000)  were  sold  in 
Berlin.  And  these  bonds,  while  not  in  the  strict  sense 
government  paper,  are  nevertheless  guaranteed  by 
Russia,  and  increase,  of  course,  the  "gold  tribute" 
paid  to  the  foreigner;  in  their  essence  they  are  nothing 
but  Russian  government  loans. 

It  is,  therefore,  still  the  old  story,  even  under  Witte: 
foreign  and  domestic  loans;  sale  of  securities  in  Paris 
or  Berlin;  drawing  foreign  capital  into  Russia  for  in- 
dustrial enterprises.  And  with  that,  despite  the  ap- 
parently secure  foundation  of  the  gold  standard,  there 
are  evidences  that  tell  in  the  other  direction.  In  his 
budget  report  of  1901  Witte  admits  that  the  gold  re- 
serve has  decreased  by  almost  twenty-five  millions  in 
1899,  and  by  seventy-four  millions  in  1900. 

Export  and  import  conditions  since  1887  have  main- 
tained about  the  same  ratio.  Exports  have  averaged 
seven  hundred  millions  and  imports  between  five  hun- 
dred and  six  hundred  millions.  Since  the  Russian  in- 
dustrial panic,  or,  more  properly  speaking,  collapse,  in 
1898,  there  has  come  a  great  change  in  the  nature  of 
this  import.  Machinery  especially,  which  before  had 
been  imported  increasingly  for  industrial  purposes,  has 
diminished  enormously.  The  chief  item  of  export  is 
still  cereals,  and  this  fact  was  not  even  vitiated  by  the 
famine  of  1901.  It  is  worth  remarking  that  the  official 
Russian  figures  for  exports  and  imports  have  of  late 


Russian  Finances  83 

years  become  very  untrustworthy,  no  matter  for  what 
reason.  But  in  any  event  the  fact  remains  that  Witte 
has  only  been  able  to  maintain  the  export  figures  at 
their  average  height  by  official  prodding  and  spurring. 
Thus,  the  budget  report  of  1902  admits  that  even  in 
comparison  with  the  very  unfavourable  average  for  the 
harvests  of  the  preceding  five  years,  the  cereal  produc- 
tion of  the  country  in  1901  shows  a  decrease  of  236 
million  pood.  And  yet  in  spite  of  the  famine  that 
ravaged  the  central  provinces  of  Russia  that  year,  there 
was  an  increase  of  over  one  hundred  million  pood  in 
cereal  exports.  This  remarkable  fact  is  a  striking 
illustration  to  the — agriculturally  considered — suicidal 
policy  of  Russia  in  squeezing  the  last  kopek  out  of  the 
starving  Russian  peasant  to  produce  the  required  taxes 
and  incidentally  to  maintain  the  equilibrium  between 
exports  and  imports. 

For  the  faith  in  Russia's  **  productivity  "  which  has 
guided  foreign  capitalists  in  their  Russian  investments, 
there  are,  of  course,  some  reasons.  That  the  natural 
resources  of  the  country  are  great  is  indisputable;  but 
they  are  by  fully  nine-tenths  undeveloped,  owing  not 
alone  to  lack  of  capital,  but  also  in  goodly  proportion 
to  want  of  proper  communication  facilities.  To  become 
aware  of  that,  it  is  but  necessary  to  study  the  railroad 
map  of  Russia.  It  will  be  found  that  the  main  trunk 
lines— both  the  St.  Petersburg- Moscow  and  the  Trans- 
Siberian  Railroads — have  been  built  with  scarcely  any 
reference  to  the  principal  Russian  and  Siberian  inland 


84  Russia 

cities.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  even  those  towns  which 
are  nominally  connected  by  railroad  lie  as  a  rule  miles 
away  from  the  station.  The  great  majority  of  Russian 
towns  are  distant  from  the  railroads  many  miles,  not 
infrequently  fifty,  a  hundred,  and  even  more.  The 
highroads  of  the  country,  too,  are  for  the  most  part  in 
a  fearful  condition,  morasses  in  early  spring  and  quite 
impassable  during  part  of  the  autumn. 

Russia  has,  however,  several  sources  of  wealth  which 
are  rarely  spoken  of.  The  government  itself  owns  im- 
mense property.  Besides  railroads,  domanial  estates, 
and  mines  in  both  Europe  and  Asia,  the  crown  owns 
in  forests  alone  238  million  dessyatines  (a  dessyatiue  be- 
ing roughly  2}^  acres);  the  latter  in  1902  yielded  some 
sixty-three  million  roubles.  Besides,  this  forest  pro- 
perty increases  annually  in  value.  The  churches  and 
convents  of  Russia  harbour  immense  treasures  in  pre- 
cious metals  and  gems.  But,  after  all,  while  presenting 
an  enormous  intrinsic  value,  these  treasures  bring  no 
return,  and  hence  are  of  no  real  service  to  the  country. 

Together  Wishnegradsky  and  Witte  have  extended 
Russia's  financial  resources,  so  far  as  taxes  and  revenues 
are  concerned,  to  an  unparalleled  degree,  but  the  ques- 
tion may  be  asked  whether  in  so  doing  they  have  bene- 
fited the  real  interests  of  the  nation,  or  whether  they 
have  not  achieved  in  the  long  run  vastly  more  harm 
than  good.  By  the  foregoing  brief  exposition  of  Rus- 
sia's present  financial  system,  the  reader  will  be  enabled 
to  answer  the  question  in  a  measure  for  himself.     But 


Russian  Finances  85 

there  are  many  native  Russians,  competent  judges  of 
the  situation,  who  frankly  declare  that  the  economic 
condition  of  the  people  has  not  only  not  been  bettered 
by  the  measures  of  the  two  financiers  spoken  of,  but 
has  been  very  considerably  lowered.  In  a  memorial 
published  not  long  ago  by  M.  Schwanebach,  a  member 
of  the  imperial  council,  and  admittedly  one  of  the 
sanest  financial  experts  the  empire  possesses,  that  oSicial 
says:  "  With  the  present  condition  of  our  national 
affairs  our  insufficiently  developed  industry  cannot 
form  that  strong  basis  which,  according  to  our  money 
reforms,  it  ought  to  be." 

M.  de  Witte  is  without  doubt  an  extraordinary  man, 
possessing  qualities  rare  in  Russia  to  an  unusual  de- 
gree. But  even  he  is  not  the  dictator  of  Russia;  he 
is  not  all-powerful,  but  must  reckon  with  other  forces 
within  the  empire,  and  some  of  the  most  important 
ones  are  in  opposition  to  him  and  have  all  along  hin- 
dered him  in  his  work.  Wishnegradsky  became  a 
physical  wreck  during  the  six  years  of  his  administra- 
tion. The  same  fate  is  probably  in  store  for  his  suc- 
cessor. And  who  is  to  be  his  heir?  There  is  no 
second  Witte  in  Russia. 

But  aside  from  that  consideration,  much  more  im- 
portant is  the  fact  that  even  a  Witte  cannot  enable  the 
Russian  people  to  jump  at  one  bound  across  the  space 
of  several  centuries  which  Western  industrial  nations 
required  to  climb  painfully  and  slowly  to  their  pre- 
sent industrial  heights.     Witte  has  used  mechanical. 


86  Russia 

external  means,  has  spurred  and  urged  the  Russian 
people  to  enter  into  active  competition  in  industrial 
ways  with  the  foremost  nations  of  the  globe.  But  in 
doing  that  he  has,  it  is  to  be  feared,  increased  the 
anaemia  from  which  the  heart  of  Russia  suffers,  and 
this  despite  the  gold-filled  national  treasury.  The  en- 
ticing financial  figures  cannot  disguise  the  fateful  fact 
that  the  huge  empire  is  in  danger,  even  in  grave  dan- 
ger, of  an  internal  revolution,  partly  due  to  the  ex- 
haustion brought  on  by  the  very  labours  of  Witte  and 
Wishnegradsky.  This  will  be  shown  more  clearly  in 
succeeding  chapters. 


CHAPTER   IV 

RISE  AND  COLLAPSE  OF  INDUSTRY 

Russian  Industry  a  Hothouse  Product  of  her  Two  Latest 
Finance  Ministers,  Wishnegradsky  and  De  Witte— Dwin- 
dling of  her  One-Time  Peculiar  Rural  Industry,  an  Out- 
Growth  of  Serfdom— Russia  Fulfils  Not  One  of  the  Three 
Main  Conditions  of  a  Successful  Modern  Industry— Up  to 
a  Few  Years  Ago  Russia's  Captains  of  Industry  Were  All 
Foreigners — The  Large  Number  of  Russian  Holidays  a 
Great  Drawback— The  Modern  Moujik  is  Half  Rural  and 
Half  Industrial  Labourer— Fiscalism  the  Key-Note  to 
Witte's  System  —  Complete  Breakdown  of  Russia's  In- 
dustry During  the  Last  Couple  of  Years— Russia's  Asiatic 
Market  Insignificant— Foreign  Capital  Now  Very  Shy  of 
Russian  Investment— The  True  Industrial  Salvation  of 
Russia  Concealed  in  the  Svietelka—hn  Opportunity  for  a 
Broad-Gauge  Statesman  in  Russia 

MODERN  industry  in  its  development  has  been 
bound  to  three  conditions,  namely:  a  thorough 
training,  previously  obtained,  in  skilled  handicraft;  a 
sufficiency  of  mobile  capital;  and  a  numerous  and  intelli- 
gent middle  class.  We  can  trace  the  workings  of  this 
law  very  clearly  during  the  past  century.  England, 
left  after  the  Napoleonic  era  as  the  sole  nation  com- 
bining in  the  highest  degree  not  only  these  three  fact- 
ors, but  also  the  important  additional  one  of  supreme 
sea  power,  illustrates  it  strikingly.     Her  exceptional 

87 


88  Russia 

position  enabled  her  to  gather  enormous  wealth,  and 
this  wealth  she  was  able  to  utilise  in  industry.  Ger- 
many was  industrially  greatly  inferior  to  France  until 
after  the  war  of  1870-1871;  the  billion  dollars  which 
France  had  to  pay  in  war  indemnity  furnished  Ger- 
many with  the  means  to  develop  her  industry.  The 
industrial  rise  of  the  United  States  is  another  proof 
of  the  validity  of  this  economic  law. 

Which  of  the  three  factors  enumerated  above  did 
Russia  possess  when  Witte  undertook  to  create  a  great 
Russian  industry  ?  The  answer  must  be,  emphatically. 
Not  one  of  them. 

Until  the  year  of  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs,  1861, 
Russia  had  no  modern  industry  worth  mentioning. 
There  were,  it  is  true,  some  small  cloth  factories  in 
Moscow,  Tula,  St.  Petersburg,  and  Odessa,  some  iron 
works,  several  textile  works,  etc.  But  they  were  en- 
tirely in  foreign  hands,  on  a  small  scale,  and  few  in 
number.  The  only  national  industry  existed  in  the 
rural  districts;  it  was  a  cottage  industry,  bred  and 
fostered  by  large  estate  owners  to  give  their  serfs  em- 
ployment during  the  long  Russian  winters.  In  its 
way  this  domestic  peasant  industry  was  considerable 
and  varied.  During  the  long  period  of  serfdom  a  num- 
ber of  the  powerful  nobles,  owning  many  thousands  of 
serfs,  had  occasionally  sent  one  or  more  of  their  human 
chattels  possessing  unusual  intelligence  to  foreign 
parts,  Germany,  Holland,  Belgium,  or  France,  there 
to  learn  some  particular  line  of  skilled  labour,  and  on 


Rise  and  Collapse  of  Industry       89 

their  return  these  men  had  acted  as  teachers  on  estates, 
thus  introducing,  one  after  the  other,  a  number  of  handi- 
crafts which  in  time  were  adopted  by  many  thousands. 
The  spinning  and  weaving  of  coarse  silk,  cloth,  and 
cotton  stuffs  had  been  carried  on  in  the  izbas  (huts)  of 
the  peasantry;  hardware  of  the  simpler  type,  all  sorts 
of  woodenware,  wood-carving,  and  particularly  the 
manufacture  of  ico7is  (small  pictures  of  Russian  national 
saints,  such  as  are  to  be  met  with  in  every  Russian 
household) — all  these  things  had  been  done  by  the 
Russian  peasant  for  many  years,  in  unequal  degrees 
of  workmanship  and  usually  each  line  confined  to  cer- 
tain provinces  or  districts.  But,  after  all,  this  house 
industry  was  of  the  mediaeval  kind,  and  its  relatively 
flourishing  condition  was  largely  due  to  exceptional 
circumstances.  It  is,  however,  also  true  that  the  Rus- 
sian peasant  possesses  a  certain  mechanical  talent. 
With  his  rude  axe  and  saw,  a  hammer,  and  a  knife  he 
will  fashion  all  sorts  of  agricultural  tools,  rowboats, 
sledges,  and  waggons,  and  many  other  things  surpris- 
ingly well. 

If  the  Russian  government  had  been  wise  enough  to 
make  good  use  of  these  existing  factors  ;  if,  building  on 
these  crude  domestic  industries,  it  had  encouraged  the 
rise  of  modern  industry,  taking  advantage  in  each  case 
of  local  conditions,  a  sound  Russian  industry,  resting 
on  a  solid  foundation  of  natural  or  acquired  skill  and 
taste,  could  have  been  produced  in  time.  Unfortun- 
ately this  was  not  done. 


90  Russia 

At  the  time  of  serf  emancipation  the  Russian  govern- 
ment gave  to  the  peasantry  150,000,000  dessyatines  of 
land  to  cultivate,  obliging  the  former  serf  to  pay  for 
his  little  strip  of  land  in  instalments.  But  it  held  out 
no  inducement  to  him,  nor  to  any  portion  of  the  peas- 
antry, to  develop  into  a  skilled  and  permanently  em- 
ployed factory  hand.  On  the  contrary,  the  unwise 
proceeding  of  the  Russian  government  was  the  means 
of  destroying  this  very  cottage  industry.  True,  the 
peasant  was  held  to  the  soil  by  his  ownership  of  it,  but 
the  small  holdings  did  not  even  suflSce  for  his  modest 
needs,  once  the  constantly  rising  taxes  had  been  paid 
on  them,  and  thus  the  peasants  were  forced  to  flock  to 
the  towns  in  winter  in  search  of  employment,  under- 
bidding one  the  other.  The  nobleman,  no  longer  inter- 
ested in  the  welfare  of  his  former  serfs,  took  no  interest 
in  maintaining  or  further  developing  the  domestic  peas- 
ant industry  which  formerly  he  had  fostered.  Thus 
the  latter  went  to  pieces,  while  at  the  same  time  urban 
industry  failed  to  develop  adequately  because  of  a  lack 
of  capital.  The  government  considered  itself  too  poor 
to  advance  the  capital  necessary  for  large  industrial 
enterprises. 

Thus  things  went  on  in  a  haphazard  way  from  1861 
to  1895.  Some  industrial  cities  had  grown  up,  like 
Ivodz,  Vilna,  Warsaw,  and  others,  but  they  were  on 
the  frontier,  in  Poland,  or  the  Baltic  provinces,  and 
therefore  outside  of  Russia  proper.  The  half-dozen  or 
so  of  Russian  interior  cities  having  a  population  of 


Rise  and  Collapse  of  Industry       91 

more  than  fifty  thousand  were  not  flourishing,  and 
the  small  industry  there  remained  in  the  hands  of  for- 
eigners. The  export  trade  done  in  them  was  likewise 
monopolised  by  Germans,  Englishmen,  Dutchmen, 
etc. 

Foreign  captains  of  industry  in  the  frontier  provinces, 
for  the  most  part  Germans  or  Belgians,  were  pressed  by 
the  Russian  government  to  transpose  their  works  to  the 
interior,  to  the  Ural,  to  Donetz,  where  iron  and  coal 
were  in  abundance.  But  these  foreigners  nearly  always 
refused  to  do  so,  and  this  for  sufficient  reasons.  In 
these  interior  provinces  they  could  find  no  skilled  la- 
bour, and  to  the  absence  of  such  labour,  particularly 
engineers  and  higher-grade  mechanics,  it  was  due  that 
if,  for  instance,  a  factory  had  been  located  on  the  banks 
of  the  Volga,  it  frequently  had  to  shut  down  for  weeks 
at  a  time  until  a  new  machinist  had  arrived  from  Eng- 
land, Germany,  or  Belgium,  in  place  of  one  who  had 
left  or  died;  if  a  boiler  needed  repairs,  weeks  and  some- 
times months  had  to  elapse  before  the  necessary  parts 
could  be  replaced  or  mended. 

There  were  many  other  difficulties  in  the  way,  and 
perhaps  the  gravest  was  the  large  number  of  holidays 
which  the  Russian  peasant  is  not  only  accustomed  to, 
but  is  actually  compelled  to  observe  by  an  unwise  gov- 
ernment. While  neighbouring  Protestant  or  Catholic 
countries  have  only  from  fifty-eight  to  sixty-five  non- 
labour  days  in  the  year,  Orthodox  Russia  enjoins  on 
her  peasantry  ninety-four  of  them.     Even  this  large 


92  Russia 

number  of  holidays  is  considered  insufl&cient  by  the 
Russian  popes,  and  the  Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod, 
Pobyedonostseff,  again  and  again  has  taken  the  Rus- 
sian peasant  to  task  for  slighting  the  fete  day  of  some 
national  saint  by  labouring  on  it.  It  is  stated  that  on 
an  average  the  Russian  peasant  of  to-day  does  no  labour 
on  150  days  out  of  the  year.  This,  of  course,  means  an 
enormous  economic  disadvantage. 

And  then,  of  course,  the  fact  that  the  Russian  peas- 
ant does  not  and  cannot  relinquish  his  rights  to  his 
little  strip  of  land  in  his  native  commune  when  he  be- 
comes a  workman  in  a  town  factory,  entails  likewise 
serious  hindrances  to  his  industrial  advancement.     The 
owner  of  one  of  the  largest  textile  works  in  Moscow 
illustrated  this  once  while  in  conversation  with  me. 
"  You  see,  these  men  of  mine  can  never  be  depended 
upon,"  said  he.     "  There  was  one  some  years  ago  who 
was  cleverer  than  the  rest.     Within  a  couple  of  years 
I  trained  him  so  that  he  could  take  charge  of  one  of 
the  engines.     I  raised  his  pay  again  and  again,  and 
then  one  fine  day,  when  he  had  saved  a  matter  of  two 
or  three  hundred  roubles,  he  came  to  me  and  asked 
permission  to  go  home.     In  his  village,  of  course,  he 
played  the  part  of  the  wealthy  man,  telling  them  stories 
about  Moscow  and  its  wonders.     A  year  later  Trifon 
turns  up  again,  bows  down  to  the  very  ground,  and 
asks  me  to  employ  him  once  more.     His  money  was 
gone.    '  Batooshka,  Carl  Ivanovitch,  old  Trifon  is  here 
once  more,'  he  says,  and  once  more  grovels  at  my  feet. 


Rise  and  Collapse  of  Industry      93 

During  his  absence  changes  have  been  made  in  the  es- 
tablishment; new  machinery  has  been  introduced,  and 
old  Trifon  has  to  learn  anew.  In  that  way  things  go, 
and  these  men  never  become  experts,  and  can  never  be 
relied  upon  for  more  than  one  winter  season."  The 
long  and  the  short  of  it  is  simply  that  the  Russian  in- 
dustrial worker  is  half  peasant  and  half  factory  hand, 
and  not  very  good  as  either. 

The  Russian  government  remained  blind  to  all  these 
deficiencies,  no  matter  how  often  its  attention  was 
called  to  them.  And  then  came  Witte.  He  pointed  to 
the  example  of  Japan.  There,  too,  a  nation  had  sud- 
denly acquired  western  methods  of  industry,  and  had 
entered  successfully  into  competition  with  the  most  ad- 
vanced nations.  But  the  two  cases  are  not  parallel. 
Japan  had  had  a  very  old  industry,  generally  diffused  and 
brought  to  the  highest  point,  though  in  methods  dif- 
fering radically  from  western  ones.  Japan's  population 
is  one  of  the  most  diligent  and  ambitious  on  earth. 
Her  agricultural  conditions  are  sound,  and  none  of  the 
peculiar  difficulties  have  confronted  her  in  bringing 
about  an  industrial  transformation  from  which  Russia 
suffered  and  suffers.  Besides,  the  lower-class  Russian 
has  not  the  nimble  intellect  and  the  quick  powers  of 
perception  of  the  Japanese,  nor  has  he  the  latter' s  bold 
initiative. 

The  difficulties  pointed  out  above  could,  of  course,  not 
be  overcome  by  Witte.  But  the  capital  at  least  could 
be  obtained.     In  the  preceding  chapter  it  has  been 


94  •  Russia 

shown  how  this  was  done.  On  March  13,  1894,  M.  de 
Witte  made  a  speech  in  which  he  outlined  his  plans  as 
follows: 

It  is  absolutely  required  to  obtain  capital  in  abundance  and 
from  many  sources  in  order  to  aid  our  industry.  It  is  a  regret- 
table fact  that  we  have  an  insuflSciency  of  capital  ourselves. 
.  .  .  We  are  therefore  obliged  to  utilise  the  wealth  of  capital 
which  foreign  nations  possess,  and  which  we  can  obtain  at  low 
rates.  In  this  way  we  shorten  the  difficult  period  of  learning 
industrial  methods,  and  the  process  is  simplified  by  the  pene- 
tration into  Russia  of  much  technical  knowledge. 

That,  then,  was  part  of  Witte' s  programme.  He  fol- 
lowed it  up  consistently.  Enormous  sums  obtained  by 
him  from  foreign  creditors  were  launched  into  Russian 
industry.  Above  all,  the  network  of  national  railroads 
was  enlarged.  Bach  new  road  called  for  large  supplies 
of  rails,  rolling  stock,  coal,  the  construction  of  build- 
ings, bridges,  telegraphs,  aqueducts,  etc.,  and  all  these 
things  necessitated  the  establishment  of  factories  and 
workshops.  Everywhere  the  iron  industry  forms  the 
main  pillar  of  modern  industry;  if  that  is  flourishing  it 
may  be  assumed  that  industry  as  a  whole  is  doing  well. 
It  became  Witte' s  task  to  promote  the  iron  industry. 
The  government  erected  big  iron  and  steel  works,  car 
and  locomotive  works;  and  chemical,  cement  factories 
and  others,  followed.  Industrial  establishments  rose 
almost  overnight,  most  numerously  in  the  centrally  lo- 
cated provinces  of  Moscow  and  Vladimir,  in  the  Donetz 
district,  rich  in  ores  and  coal,  at  the  large  harbours, 
where  foreign  technicians  and  English  coal  could  be 


Rise  and  Collapse  of  Industry      95 

had  cheaply,  and  in  Poland,  where  German  and  Jewish 
capital  and  Silesian  coal  could  be  obtained. 

Between  1894  and  1899  some  927  stock  companies 
were  chartered  by  the  Russian  government,  their  joint 
nominal  capital  being  1420  millions.  Industrial  pro- 
duction rose  correspondingly;  from  1877  to  1887  it  in- 
creased almost  fifty  per  cent.  In  1887  it  amounted  to 
802  millions,  and  by  1892  to  loio  millions.  But  within 
the  five  years  of  1892-1897,  under  Witte,  it  climbed 
up  to  1816  millions.  Between  1894-1899  Witte  ex- 
pended in  the  construction  of  railroads  and  the  manu- 
facture of  rolling  stock  a  matter  of  1 273  millions.  The 
two  statistical  facts  are  intimately  connected  with  each 
other.  A  very  large  portion  of  Russia's  new  industry 
was  and  is  to-day  dependent  on  government  railroad 
construction.  The  swelling  of  Russian  industry  pro- 
duced, of  course,  new  revenue — import  duties,  excise 
taxes,  commercial  dues,  stamp  duty,  revenues  from  in- 
creased postal  and  telegraph  facilities,  etc.  This  gave 
an  increased  revenue  of  236  millions. 

After  Witte  had  brought  the  railroad  system  under 
his  control,  the  allied  industries  became  likewise  depen- 
dent on  him,  all  the  more  as  the  banks  had  also  to  do  his 
bidding.  For  some  years  these  private  factories,  called 
into  life  by  him,  found  remunerative  employment.  But 
when  it  was  found  that  the  railroads  did  not  pay,  Witte 
began  to  exert  pressure  on  prices.  He  reduced  the  prices 
paid  for  rails,  cars,  etc.,  repeatedly,  and  a  time  came 
when  private  works  yielded  no  longer  any  dividends. 


< 


96  Russia 

In  the  matter  of  the  liquor  monopoly  Witte  has  like- 
wise acted  similarly.  The  distilleries  were  and  are  en- 
tirely dependent  on  him.  The  government  alone  has 
the  right  to  purchase  liquor,  and  the  prices  paid  for  it 
are  dictated  by  the  state.  By  adopting  uniform  rates 
of  payment  the  peculiar  local  conditions  are  ignored. 
Russian  liquor,  vodka,  is  made  from  potatoes.  In 
Yaroslav  potatoes  bring  twice  the  price  they  do  in 
Grodno,  yet  the  finished  product,  the  liquor,  is  paid  for 
at  the  same  rate  by  the  government.  In  this  way  it 
came  about  that  thousands  of  the  smaller  distilleries 
situated  on  and  connected  with  rural  estates  were 
ruined.  Rural  distilleries,  in  fact,  were  forced  out  of 
the  business,  and  large  distilleries  in  the  towns  enjoy- 
ing good  railroad  facilities  took  their  places,  a  fact  bear- 
ing very  hard  on  Russian  agriculture. 

Another  great  industry,  that  of  making  beet  sugar, 
has  grown  up  of  late  under  governmental  patronage. 
Since  the  beginning  of  the  seventies  Russian  beet  sugar 
has  been  protected  by  high  duties.  By  the  law  of  No- 
vember 20,  1895,  the  whole  industry  was  organised  and 
centralised,  and  the  trust  resulting  therefrom  has  been 
enabled  to  fix  the  inland  price  from  year  to  year.  The 
cultivation  of  the  beet  rapidly  extended  in  the  southern 
provinces,  and  Russian  sugar  gradually  ousted  the  for- 
eign product.  This  fact  at  first  sight  seems  to  tell  in 
favour  of  agriculture.  The  promoting  of  Russia's  sugar 
industry  made  it  possible  for  a  great  number  of  large 
estates  to  cultivate  their  soil   more  intensely.      The 


Rise  and  Collapse  of  Industry      97 

government  has  made  great  profit  out  of  sugar.  The 
budget  of  1902  shows  the  internal  sugar  tax  to  have 
yielded  a  matter  of  69^  million  roubles.  But  on  close 
view  it  is  found  that  the  Russian  consumer  has  to  pay 
from  three  to  four  times  the  price  for  his  sugar  which 
the  same  sugar  fetches  in  export.  To  compete  in  for- 
eign parts  the  Russian  sugar  producer  has  to  accept 
prices  which  do  not  pay  expenses,  and  the  deficiency  is 
made  up  by  the  Russian  consumer. 

A  specious  presentation  of  the  facts  underlying  Rus- 
sian sugar  production  was  published  on  March  16,  1902, 
in  the  official  organ  of  the  finance  ministry,  the  Finan- 
cial Messenger.  The  claim  is  advanced  in  it  that  the 
centralising  of  the  whole  production  in  1 895  had  for  its 
purpose  the  cheapening  of  sugar  for  the  Russian  con- 
sumer. But  the  fact  is  patent  that  the  contrary  result 
was  attained  by  it.  The  paper  hints  at  this  fact,  but 
throws  the  entire  blame  on  the  shoulders  of  those  few 
sugar  monopolists  in  Russia  who  influence  "  most  un- 
favourably current  prices." 

The  excessive  protectionism  of  Wishnegradsky,  cul- 
minating in  the  tariflfof  1891,  was  abated  somewhat  by 
the  Russo-German  commercial  treaty  of  January  i,  1894, 
but  has  remained  nevertheless  the  reigning  system.  If 
in  spite  of  that  import  rapidly  grew,  it  was  owing  to 
the  large  needs  of  Russia  in  industrial  and  agricultural 
machinery.  The  revenue  from  imports  increased  for 
some  5^ears,  but  in  1898  came  the  industrial  panic,  and 

with  it  came  a  great  diminution  of  import  duties. 
7 


98  Russia 

Witte  carried  out  persistently  his  policy  of  be- 
friending native  industry.  Now  and  then,  when  he 
thought  Russian  producers  strong  enough  for  the  pur- 
pose, he  did  not  hesitate  to  lay  a  prohibitive  duty  on 
special  articles.  Railroads  and  industrial  establish- 
ments of  every  kind  had  to  pledge  themselves  to  sup- 
port native  industry  by  taking  all  articles  made  in 
Russia  from  the  home  producer,  although  in  this  they 
had  to  be  satisfied  with  far  inferior  quality  and  higher 
prices. 

A  striking  illustration  in  this  connection  is  Russia's 
experience  in  the  matter  of  railroad  construction.  Two 
eminent  economic  Russian  authorities,  Issayeff  and 
Radzig,  agree  in  the  statement  that  during  the  twelve 
years  1884-1895  Russia  bought  113  million  pood  of 
home-made  rails  for  which  she  paid  ninety-two  million 
roubles  more  than  she  would  have  had  to  pay  to  Eng- 
lish manufacturers  for  a  better  quality.  Since  1895 
enormous  quantities  of  Russian  rails  were  bought  by  the 
government  in  the  construction  of  the  Trans-Siberian 
Railroad.  They  were  found  to  be  of  deficient  quality 
and  of  too  light  weight,  and  had  to  be  later  on  replaced 
for  a  distance  of  thousands  of  miles  by  rails  of  a  better 
quality.  And  for  these  Russian  rails  the  government 
had  to  pay  two  roubles  twenty-five  kopeks  the  pood, 
whereas  better  English  ones  could  have  been  bought  at 
seventy  kopeks  the  pood,  that  is,  at  less  than  one-third. 
Altogether,  it  is  estimated  that  within  the  past  twenty 
years  the  Russian  government  has  paid  something  like 


Rise  and  Collapse  of  Industry      99 

three  hundred  milHon  roubles  for  Russian  rails  in  ex- 
cess of  foreign  prices. 

The  above  is  a  sample  of  the  present  achievements 
of  Russian  industry.  Russian  economists  have  cited 
many  more. 

The  fact  has  often  been  spoken  of  that  Russia  has  no 
trained  industrial  army  of  labourers,  mechanics,  and 
machinists.  Nor  had  she,  up  to  the  time  that  Witte 
took  hold  of  the  helm,  the  trained  intellect  to  lead  such 
an  army.  Witte  has  been  trying  since  to  overcome  at 
least  the  last-named  obstacle.  He  set  out  to  found 
technical  and  commercial  schools  and  colleges.  For 
model  he  took  the  German  ones.  There  are  at  present 
four  commercial  colleges  of  high  grade  in  Russia,  and 
Trubnikoflf,  an  authority  in  Russia,  puts  the  number  of 
lower  technical  and  commercial  schools  at  190.  They 
average  twenty  thousand  pupils  a  year  and  the  finance 
ministry  spends  on  them  (budget  of  1902)  a  matter  of 
4>^  million  roubles.  With  all  this  the  number  of  na- 
tive technical  talent  remains  very  small,  the  great  ma- 
jority being  of  Polish  or  Baltic  German  nationality. 

One  of  the  main  questions  in  this  matter  is:  For 
whom  is  all  this  industrial  output  of  Russia  intended  ? 
Who  is  to  be  the  consumer,  the  Russian  or  the 
foreigner? 

Even  Witte,  optimist  as  he  is,  does  not  hope  for  any 
large  number  of  consumers  in  Europe;  he  appreciates 
the  undeniable  facts  that  forbid  such  an  assumption. 
There  are,  however,  better  prospects  for  Asia,  and  it  is 


loo  Russia 

to  that  enormous  market  that  the  Russian  politician 
turns  longingly.  For  the  Asiatic  market  seems  open 
to  Russia  from  the  Pacific  to  the  shores  of  the  Eu- 
phrates. How  large  is  the  Russian  export  to  that  part 
of  the  world  ?  It  is  very  small  indeed.  At  the  rise  of 
Russian  industry,  in  1894,  the  entire  export  of  Russian 
products  of  industry  amounted  to  only  9)^  millions;  in 
the  following  year  it  had  risen  to  11  millions,  and 
since  then  it  averages  annually  about  28  millions. 
Of  this  Asia  has  altogether  taken  about  two-thirds. 
But  what  is  that  in  comparison  to  an  annual  pro- 
duction of  1800  millions  in  industrial  values?  The 
entire  export  figure  on  this  class  of  goods  is  only 
3.7  per  cent,  of  the  total  Russian  export.  There  re- 
mains, therefore,  only  the  internal  market  for  Russian 
industry.  To  what  an  extent  is  it  capable  of  assimilat- 
ing Russian  industrial  products? 

A  country  of  130  million  souls  seems  on  the  face  of  it 
a  fine  market.  As  pointed  out  before,  large  tracts  of  it 
are  very  fertile,  and  huge  masses  of  cereals  are  pro- 
duced, much  of  these  going  to  foreign  parts.  From  1887 
to  1891  an  average  of  442  million  pood  of  breadstuflfs 
was  exported;  from  1893  to  1897  this  figure  rose  to  523 
millions.  These  facts  again  looked  quite  promising  for 
Russian  industry.  But  by  examining  the  facts  more  care- 
fully, it  will  be  seen  that  out  of  the  whole  130  millions 
of  Russians,  there  are  only  a  beggarly  two  or  three  mil- 
lions financially  able  to  buy  industrial  products  of  the 
finer  grades.     The  great  bulk  of  the  Russian  nation  is 


Rise  and  Collapse  of  Industry     loi 

living  under  conditions  of  what  in  western  countries 
would  be  termed  degrading  poverty.  Nor  are  political, 
social,  and  economic  conditions  such  in  the  Russia  of 
to-day  as  to  promise  a  rapid  change  in  this  respect. 

And  yet,  as  we  have  seen,  there  has  been  a  sudden 
rise  and  growth  of  Russian  industry.  The  simple  ex- 
planation lies  in  the  fact  that  this  industry,  too,  has 
been  and  is  of  a  fiscal  nature:  The  state,  the  govern- 
ment, are  both  the  great  producer  and  consumer.  The 
construction  of  enormous  railroads,  an  industry  supply- 
ing all  the  needs  in  this  connection,  a  liquor  monopoly, 
and  a  sugar  industry  promoted  in  every  way,  the 
government  exacting  enormous  revenue  from  all 
these  things — this  is  the  explanation  of  an  economic 
phenomenon. 

I^arge  profits  were  made  in  Russian  industrial  en- 
terprises during  the  first  three  years  of  the  boom 
engineered  by  M.  de  Witte.  On  the  St.  Petersburg 
bourse  many  industrial  shares  were  quoted  at  enormous 
figures,  and  some  of  the  companies  made  dividends  of 
sixty  per  cent,  and  over.  But  this  lasted  only  a  short 
time.  With  greater  stringency  in  European  money 
markets,  the  scarcity  of  capital  was  felt  again  in  Russia. 
A  few  of  the  very  largest  industrial  firms  in  Russia, 
first  that  of  von  Derwes,  then  Mamontofi",  failed.  De- 
spite this,  even  in  1899,  that  is,  right  in  the  midst  of  the 
great  industrial  crisis,  seventy  new  foreign  corporations 
were  formed  in  Russia.  Altogether  at  the  close  of  1899, 
146  foreign  corporations,  with  a  capital  of  765  million 


I02  Russia 

roubles  (or  2075  million  francs)  had  been  chartered  in 
Russia;  of  this  sum  France  was  engaged  with  792  mill- 
ions, Belgium  with  734  millions,  Germany  with  261 
millions,  and  England  with  231  millions.  Witte  at 
that  time  was  warning  the  public,  both  by  word  of 
mouth  and  by  his  press  organs,  to  use  more  caution. 
But  the  fever  which  he  himself  had  incited  was  now 
running  its  course.  In  public  utterances  he  had  given 
to  understand  that  the  great  fiscal  orders  for  railroad 
building  would  in  the  main  cease  with  1900.  On  Oc- 
tober 31,  1899,  he  declared  Russia's  finances  to  be  in 
a  brilliant  condition,  sounder,  he  said,  than  those  of 
France  or  England.  This  statement  of  his  shows  to 
what  a  dangerous  extent  he  was  overestimating  the  in- 
trinsic strength  of  Russia  and  underestimating  the  dan- 
gers of  the  whole  situation.  Only  a  twelvemonth  later 
came  the  great  crash. 

The  excesses  of  governmental  receipts  over  expendi- 
tures would  even  then  have  remained  considerable. 
But  unfortunately  political  complications  arose,  and 
they  emptied  his  treasury.  It  had  been  his  intention 
to  construct  the  Trans-Siberian  Railroad  without  in- 
curring any  new  foreign  debt,  solely  relying  on  the 
regular  surplus  of  the  annual  government  household. 
But  the  Boxer  rising  intervened  in  China.  This  cost 
him  during  1900  the  enormous  sum  of  334  million 
roubles.  The  Russian  state  credit  suffered,  and  with 
it  the  credit  of  the  private  banks.  Thus  was  precipi- 
tated the  crash. 


Rise  and  Collapse  of  Industry     103 

During  1900  all  industrial  values  in  Russia  fell  with 
rapidity,  and  early  in  October  panic  reigned  at  the  St. 
Petersburg  bourse.  Even  the  Agrarian  Banks  lost  an 
average  of  70  roubles  per  share  ;  Nobel  petroleum 
shares  depreciated  by  144  roubles,  and  it  was  similar 
with  nearly  all  paper  negotiated  on  the  exchange.  A 
well-informed  correspondent  early  in  1901  gave  facts 
and  figures  showing  the  collapse  of  nearly  all  the  Bel- 
gian companies  in  Russia.  It  was  said  their  loss  alone 
amounted  to  734  million  francs.  From  October,  1900, 
one  firm  after  another  went  into  bankruptcy.  At  the 
close  of  the  year  one  of  the  leading  St.  Petersburg 
journals  said  in  an  annual  financial  review:  "  It  will 
take  many  years  to  make  us  forget  our  losses.  Of  282 
bourse  days  200  were  marked  by  panicky  conditions." 

In  an  ofl&cial  report  of  the  finance  ministry  the  fact 
was  mentioned  that  twenty-four  million  roubles  had 
alone  been  lost  by  stopping  the  erection  of  factories  and 
works  for  which  under  existing  conditions  there  seemed 
no  longer  any  need.  Other  works  to  the  total  value  of 
two  hundred  million  roubles  had  to  be  closed  up  perma- 
nently. Over  four  hundred  factories  dismissed  all  their 
hands  and  stopped  operations.  In  the  Donetz  district 
twenty-five  out  of  fifty-seven  blast  furnaces  were  shut 
down,  A  foreign  correspondent  writing  from  St.  Pe- 
tersburg said  that  by  far  the  larger  part  of  the  foreign 
capital  invested  in  Russia  had  been  swept  away  in  the 
panic.  "  This  blow  is  all  the  harder  for  Russia,"  con- 
tinued he,  "  as  foreign  capital  for  the  future  will  be  very 


I04  Russia 

chary  of  investment  in  Russia."  In  connection  with 
this  panic  the  fact  was  brought  out  very  clearly  that  on 
the  whole  Russia  is  by  no  means  a  country  promising 
large  returns  on  invested  capital.  Even  the  iron  and 
steel  works  there,  during  the  brief  period  of  boom  con- 
ditions, yielded  only  a  net  return  of  5^  per  cent. 

How  complete  is  the  collapse  of  Russian  industry 
may  be  gathered  from  a  very  few  typical  quotations. 
I  will  pick  out  twelve  of  the  leading  Russian  industrial 
establishments  owing  their  inception  to  Witte's  indus- 
trial boom,  and  all  of  them  among  the  soundest  and 
most  wisely  managed  of  their  kind.  These  are  the  four 
great  steel  works  of  Alexandrovsk,  Bransk,  Donetz- 
YuryeflF,  Ssormovo,  the  machine  works  at  Kolomna, 
Maltzeflf,  Putiloflf,  the  Russian  Locomotive  Works,  the 
Baltic  Car  "Works,  the  Petersburg  Metal  Works,  the 
Gleboff  Works,  and  the  Phoenix  Car  Works.  On 
January  i,  1896,  all  of  them  had  attained  their  maxi- 
mum value  at  the  bourse;  in  1902  they  had  depreciated, 
some  of  them,  by  ninety-five  per  cent.,  others  by  ninety 
and  eighty  per  cent.,  and  not  one  of  them  by  less  than 
seventy  per  cent.  The  Gleboff  works  were  utterly 
wiped  out. 

What  was  to  be  done  in  the  face  of  such  conditions  ? 
Witte  could  think  of  nothing  better  than  to  revert  to 
his  old  method :  Raising  big  loans  in  the  foreign  money 
market  and  engage  in  more  railroad  building  with  the 
millions  thus  obtained.  Within  two  years  he  used  up 
310  million  roubles  in  enlarging  the  existing  facilities 


Rise  and  Collapse  of  Industry     105 

of  railroads  or  beginning  the  construction  of  new  ones. 
The  Moscow-Kasan  Raih'oad  and  the  lyodz  Railroad 
were  doubled  in  capacity.  Three  new  railroads  were 
projected  and  their  construction  begun,  the  Northern 
Line,  the  Orenburg-Tashkend,  and  the  Bologoye-Sed- 
lez,  together  about  three  thousand  miles,  as  well  as  the 
new  roads  being  built  under  the  management  of  the 
Eastern  China  Company,  with  a  projected  length  of 
2377  verst.  This,  of  course,  brought  new  orders  during 
1902  and  1903  to  industrial  works.  But  this  is  virtually 
the  sieve  of  the  Danaids,  without  end  or  profit. 

In  all  this  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Russia  is  a 
very  poor  country,  with  very  little  capital,  and  that 
enterprises  such  as,  for  instance,  England's  projected 
Cape-to-Cairo  Railroad,  enterprises  which  for  many 
years  to  come  will  be  unprofitable  from  an  economic 
point  of  view,  are  well  enough  for  a  nation  with  a  large 
surplus  of  capital  lying  fallow  and  anxious  for  invest- 
ment, but  will  never  do  for  Russia.  That  country,  as 
we  have  seen,  has  had  for  many  years  the  annual  prob- 
lem confronting  it  of  how  to  make  its  exports  exceed  its 
imports,  so  as  to  enable  it  to  pay  the  interest  and  sink- 
ing fund  in  gold  to  foreign  creditors  without  draining 
the  nation  of  the  necessary  specie  for  the  maintenance 
of  her  gold  standard  and  the  stability  of  her  currency. 
That  problem  has  become  more  acute  with  the  enorm- 
ous increase  in  Russia's  foreign  debt  due  to  Witte's 
and  Wishnegradsky's  policy. 

True,  Witte's  ingenious  financial  stratagems  have  not 


io6  Russia 

been  entirely  in  vain.  Some  part  of  Russia's  new  in- 
dustry will  take  deeper  root  in  the  country;  the  results 
of  the  last  ten  years  will  not  all  vanish.  The  finance 
minister  himself  said  in  one  of  his  public  speeches  that 
free  competition,  that  is,  free  trade,  is  the  ultimate  ob- 
ject of  protectionism.  The  economic  ideal  for  Russia 
in  his  mind  has  been,  in  the  main,  the  United  States. 
The  industrial  rise  of  this  country  has  all  along  power- 
fully impressed  his  imagination.  And  in  very  truth 
there  are  some  striking  parallels  to  be  drawn  between 
Russia  and  this  country.  But  in  a  number  of  the  vital 
points  there  are  irreconcilable  diflferences  between  the 
two  countries,  and  it  is  very  much  to  be  feared  that  M. 
de  Witte,  shrewd  and  well-informed  man  as  he  is,  has 
never  obtained  a  sufficiencj'^  of  reliable  data  about  the 
internal  conditions  of  the  United  States  to  see  clearly 
in  the  matter. 

For  the  time  being,  and  for  many  years  to  come,  the 
Russian  internal  market — as  we  have  seen,  the  only 
one  of  any  consequence  that  Russia  can  reckon  with  as 
a  consumer  of  her  industrial  products — is  not  capable 
of  assimilating  the  output  of  a  large  industry.  Beyond 
question,  a  mass  of  industrial  wares  are  now  made  in 
Russia  which  formerly  were  imported.  With  few  ex- 
ceptions they  still  require  the  protection  of  a  very  high 
tariflf— on  many  articles,  in  fact,  far  beyond  even  our 
high  tariflf,  and  this  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  la- 
bour is  very  low-priced  there.  At  present  a  truthful 
verdict  about  the  bulk  of  Russia's  industrial  products 


Rise  and  Collapse  of  Industry     107 

would  be:  Dear  and  inferior.  On  the  ruins  of  existing 
industrial  establishments  in  Russia  new  ones  will  arise, 
acquired  under  financially  more  favourable  circum- 
stances and  managed  with  more  experience  and  sounder 
judgment.  Thus,  it  is  thinkable  that  in  the  course  of 
twenty  or  thirty  years  Russia's  industry  will  beg^n  to 
pay.  At  present  it  most  decidedly  does  not.  And  just 
as  certainly  the  nation  as  a  whole  has  become  finan- 
cially less  potent  by  Witte's  policy  than  it  was  before 
his  advent.  Untold  millions  have  been  sunk  in  the  in- 
dustrial vortex,  and  most  of  these  losses  can  never  be 
made  good.  The  setback  to  Russian  industry  will  tell 
for  a  period  of  ten  years  or  more.  National  prosperity 
has  seriously  sufiered.  In  itself,  an  industry  erected 
purely  on  fiscalism,  as  Russia's  is,  rests  on  an  insecure 
basis  and  cannot  flourish  for  any  great  length  of  time. 

During  the  past  few  years  many  warning  voices  have 
been  raised  in  Russia  itself  demanding  a  complete  aban- 
donment of  the  system  of  Wishnegradsky  and  Witte. 
These  voices  have  advocated  a  return  to  first  causes. 
In  other  words,  thej"^  have  expressed  the  belief  that  the 
growth  of  Russian  industry  cannot  be  a  healthy  one 
unless  it  come  by  slow  stages  and  through  those  or- 
ganic channels  in  which  moves  the  national  temper. 
The  foundation  of  this  new  industry  in  Russia  must  be 
the  old  cottage  industry,  the  domestic  peasant  produc- 
tion. Blindly  enough,  the  Russian  government  never 
perceived  this  fact,  but  of  late  indications  are  multiply- 
ing that  this  truth  has  percolated  more  or  less  through 


io8  Russia 

all  the  strata  of  Russian  society,  high  and  low.  M.  de 
Witte's  course  as  a  financial  reformer  seems  well-nigh 
run.  Latest  developments  at  the  Russian  court  seem 
to  verify  this  impression. 

Although  scarcely  any  help  has  been  given  the  former 
industrial  population  in  rural  Russia,  there  are  now 
signs  of  the  growth  of  a  huge  movement  in  favour  of 
the  re-establishment  everywhere  of  rural  co-operative 
workshops,  so-called  svietelka,  a  peculiar  Russian  in- 
stitution which  had  its  source  in  serfdom.  The  Rus- 
sian naturally  works  by  co-operation.  That  is  a 
peculiar  feature  of  the  national  character.  The  artel, 
or  association  of  workmen,  is  formed  on  the  slightest 
pretext  and  in  every  walk  of  life.  Even  under  present 
discouraging  circumstances  the  svietelka  has  survived. 
Nay,  more,  it  has  improved  in  methods  and  enlarged 
its  scope.  Some  of  the  large  estate-holders  are  now  as- 
sisting the  peasantry  in  their  environs,  many  of  the 
older  men  and  women  having  been  their  serfs  in 
younger  days,  in  establishing  or  enlarging  such  co- 
operative workshops.  Agricultural  reforms  are  in  the 
end  bound  to  come  in  Russia;  it  is  only  a  question  of 
time.  Serious  reverses  in  Russia's  foreign  policy — 
such  as  many  expect  will  soon  occur — may  very  likely 
precipitate  them.  By  a  system  of  financial  aid  and  en- 
couragement rendered  either  by  the  central  government 
or,  better  still,  by  the  zemstva  (provincial  administra- 
tive chambers)  these  svietelka  could  easily  be  made  the 
nuclei  of  future  industrial  development. 


Rise  and  Collapse  of  Industry     109 

These  workshops  at  present  are  housed  in  rude, 
cheap  buildings,  hardly  better  than  a  peasant's  izba, 
but  larger  and  with  more  light.  These  buildings  stand 
generally  at  a  central  point  of  the  volost  (name  for  one 
or  several  large  village  communes),  and  a  number  of 
peasants,  in  many  cases  with  their  wives  and  larger 
children,  have  clubbed  together,  after  electing  a  stajvsta 
(foreman),  for  the  purpose  of  manufacturing  articles  for 
which  there  is  a  ready  sale  in  the  vicinity.  The  trades 
followed  by  them  in  this  way  are  very  numerous,  and 
embrace  almost  every  description  of  spinning  and  weav- 
ing in  wool,  flax,  hemp,  cotton,  and  silk;  metal  work, 
from  the  manufacture  of  arras  to  knives  and  forks,  locks 
and  fish-hooks;  icons,  rude  signboards,  and  innumer- 
able other  things  that  can  be  made  in  wood,  bone, 
leather,  pasteboard,  and  other  materials.  With  their 
simple  tools  some  of  them  are  turnirg  out  even  such 
elaborate  articles  as  highly  decorated  and  ornamented 
sledges  and  carriages  (finding  purchasers  even  at 
court),  and  indeed  not  a  few  of  the  articles  turned  out, 
especially  in  the  matter  of  carving,  are  quite  artistic. 

At  present  this  form  of  national  industry  finds  no  en- 
couragement whatever  on  the  part  of  the  government. 
Witte's  deluge  of  gold  has  not  fructified  it  by  the  value 
of  a  single  rouble.  But  there  is  inherent  life  in  it,  and 
while  it,  so  far  as  scientific  co-operation  is  concerned, 
is  still  in  a  stage  of  infancy,  it  could  be  brought  to  a 
much  higher  level  with  comparatively  little  trouble  and 
slight  expense.     The  national  genius  would  evidently 


I  lo  Russia 

find  a  better  scope  in  it  than  it  does  in  a  Russian  in- 
dustry like  the  present  one,  modelled  closely  after  that 
of  much  more  advanced  western  nations.  Even  as  it 
is,  enterprising  capitalists  in  Russia  have  discovered 
the  industrial  possibilities  slumbering  in  this  feature  of 
national  life.  Some  of  these  capitalists  in  Moscow, 
Vladimir,  Tula,  Pensa,  Kaluga,  Tver,  and  elsewhere 
have  assisted  with  small  sums  such  peasant  svietelka  in 
the  manufacture  of  some  of  the  articles  mentioned  be- 
fore, and  have  attained  handsome  profits  for  themselves, 
while  the  peasant  population  has  at  least  been  pre- 
vented in  such  districts  from  starving  during  the  long 
and  idle  winter.  For  earnings  by  the  individual  mem- 
bers of  each  svietelka  are  at  present  very  low,  averaging 
less  than  ten  cents  per  diem. 

The  possibilities  opening  out  for  Russian  industry  in 
this  particular  sphere  are  unmeasured.  Under  men 
Mke  Wishnegradsky  and  Witte  these  opportunities 
have  been  utterly  neglected,  as  to  avail  themselves  of 
them  would  be  the  work  of  many  years;  progress 
would  be  slow,  but  probably  sure  and  safe,  in  nothing 
to  be  compared  with  the  hothouse  products  of  Russia's 
two  recent  financial  geniuses.  A  wise  legislator  and 
administrator  in  Russia,  whenever  such  a  one  may 
arise,  will  nevertheless  take  this  matter  up  and  devote 
to  it  his  full  attention. 


CHAPTER  V 

AGRICULTURE  AND  PEASANTRY 

Chief  Reasons  for  the  Decline  of  Both — Emancipation  of  the 
Serfs  not  an  Unmixed  Blessing — At  Present  Russian  Peas- 
ant Holdings  Average  Five  Acres  per  Head,  InsufiBcient  to 
Draw  Enough  for  the  Sustenance  of  Life  —  Conditions 
Worst  in  the  "Black-Earth  Belt "— Division  and  Sub- 
division of  Holdings  under  the  Workings  of  the  Communal 
System — Excessive  Rate  of  Land  Taxation — A  Russian 
National  Fetish  Based  on  Historical  Error— Indications 
that  the  Communal  System  is  Doomed — The  Kulak  as  a 
Social  and  Economic  Force  in  Rural  Russia — Decrease  of 
Fertility  in  Soil  and  in  the  Number  of  Cattle  and  Horses — 
Interesting  Facts  Gathered  from  NovikofiF's  Official  Report 
— The  Problem  of  Tax  Arrears — Reasons  why  Famines  have 
Become  a  Permanent  Feature  of  Russia — Starving  for  the 
Benefit  of  Government  Finances — The  Average  Russian 
Recruit  on  Joining  the  Army  Eats  his  Fill  for  the  First 
Time  in  his  Life — A  Realistic  Picture  of  the  Miseries  of 
Russian  Peasant  Life  —  Peasant  Wages  Averaging  Ten 
Cents  per  Diem— First  Faint  Traces  of  Rural  Reform 

SEVERAIy  main  facts  are  responsible  for  the  un- 
healthy condition  of  Russian  agriculture.  When 
Alexander  II.,  in  1861,  emancipated  the  Russian  peas- 
ant from  thraldom,  he  gave  him  for  his  future  susten- 
ance enough  broad  acres  to  till  to  satisfy  the  wants  of 
so  frugal  a  being.     But  that  was  forty-three  years  ago. 

Ill 


1 1 2  Russia 

Since  then  the  Russian  peasantry  have  doubled  in 
number,  and  the  land  which  they  hold  has  not  in- 
creased in  size.  Division  and  subdivision  have  been 
going  on  these  many  years,  and  to-day  the  simple  fact 
is  that  there  is  not  enough  land  per  head  of  the  peasant 
population  to  yield  adequate  returns.  This  is  one  of 
the  chief  adverse  facts  in  the  matter.  A  noted  Russian 
statistician,  lyokhtin,  claims  that  in  the  year  1892  only 
one  hundred  and  eleven  million  dessyatines  remained 
in  the  hands  of  the  peasantry;  of  this  seventy-four  and 
one-third  million  dessyatines  were  tillable  soil,  the  re- 
mainder meadows,  forest,  etc.  This,  he  claims,  meant 
only  two  dessyatines  per  head.  These  figures,  of 
course,  refer  to  Russia  proper,  not  to  the  western 
borderlands  of  Poland,  etc.,  or  to  Asiatic  Russia.  The 
"  Crown  peasant,"  that  is,  the  one  settled  on  estates 
belonging  to  the  Crown,  is  better  situated,  and  his  land 
averages  about  four  dessyatines  per  head.  In  Central 
Russia,  that  is,  in  the  "  black-earth  belt,"  the  subdivi- 
sion of  land  has  proceeded  farthest,  and  it  is  precisely 
there  that  the  circumstances  of  the  peasant  are  most 
pitiable. 

A  Russian  peasant  family  averages  seven  heads,  and 
hence  its  holdings  are  about  fourteen  dessyatines 
(roughly  speaking,  thirty-five  acres).  But  one  of  the 
great  drawbacks  to  the  ceaseless  subdivision  of  peasant 
lands  that  has  been  going  on  is  the  splitting-up  into 
small  fragments,  usually  long  and  narrow  and  lying  far 
apart,  being  not  infrequently  a  number  of  miles  distant 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        113 

from  the  peasant's  home,  necessitating  a  tremendous 
loss  of  time  and  labour  in  the  tilling.  In  fact,  many  of 
these  fragments  lie  twelve  or  fifteen  miles  away  from 
the  village  itself,  and  consist  of  lengthy  strips,  in  many 
cases  five  or  ten  of  them,  each  ten  or  twenty  feet  wide, 
thus  forcing  the  starved  horse  to  drag  the  plough  for 
half  a  day  in  one  direction  to  draw  a  furrow,  and  the 
other  half  to  draw  it  back  again.  It  will  be  easily 
seen  that  these  facts  alone  hinder  profitable  agriculture 
enormously. 

Each  peasant  owner  must  stick  to  the  method  of  his 
neighbours.  His  cattle  must  graze  at  the  time  other 
cattle  do;  he  must  sow  at  the  time  his  neighbours  sow, 
or  else  his  seed  is  trampled  underfoot  or  destroyed.  In 
short,  whether  he  will  or  no,  each  peasant  proprietor  is 
ruled  in  his  agricultural  methods  b}'  the  will  and  the 
needs  of  his  fellows  of  the  commune. 

In  many  districts  the  drawbacks  of  this  description 
amount  to  a  veritable  curse.  In  the  district  of  Oug- 
litch,  province  of  Yaroslav,  that  is,  in  the  very  centre 
of  the  empire,  the  average  portion  of  each  peasant  is 
to-day  cut  into  thirty-six  separate  strips.  In  twelve 
per  cent,  of  the  rural  communities  these  narrow  strips 
are  of  a  width  as  low  as  three  and  one-half  feet.  Be- 
tween 1875  and  1895  this  process  proceeded  at  a  par- 
ticularly rapid  rate.  Within  those  twenty  years 
(according  to  the  statements  of  M.  Polenoflf,  Moscow, 
igoi)  there  was  a  loss  of  land  per  head  of  peasant  popu- 
lation of  twenty   per  cent,  in  the  central  provinces, 

8 


114  Russia 

twenty-three  per  cent,  in  the  eastern,  and  twenty-four 
per  cent,  in  the  southern  districts.  With  that  has  gone 
a  considerable  diminution  of  grazing  lands.  In  the 
fifty  central  provinces  (out  of  the  seventy-one  of  the 
whole  of  European  Russia)  there  remain  out  of  a  total 
of  1 1 1  million  dessyatines  of  peasant  land  only  seventeen 
millions  of  meadows  and  fourteen  millions  of  other  pas- 
tures. Purchases  of  additional  agricultural  land  by 
the  peasant  communes  are  hindered  by  existing  legis- 
lation and  other  circumstances,  and  their  total  during 
the  last  twelve  years  has  been  inconsiderable.  Because 
of  joint  communal  ownership  clover  is  nowhere  to  be 
seen  on  peasant  lands.  Agricultural  implements  are 
of  the  rudest,  and  the  horses  and  cattle  of  the  meanest. 

Apparently  reliable  statistics  claim  that  nowadays 
the  Russian  peasant  retains  from  the  crop  for  his  own 
use  only  an  average  of  twenty  and  one- half  pood  of 
cereals.  These  are  the  figures  of  Lokhtin,  while  an- 
other Russian  authority,  Simkhovitch,  puts  the  figures 
even  lower,  at  nineteen  pood,  and  gives  detailed  state- 
ments for  each  province  and  for  many  separate  districts. 

However,  these  statistics  are  evidently  not  to  be  re- 
lied upon.  In  dealing  with  Russia's  peasantry  trust- 
worthy figures  are  very  difficult  to  obtain  for  several 
reasons,  one  being  that  the  peasant  himself  views  with 
suspicion  all  attempts  made  to  get  at  the  truth  regarding 
his  standard  of  life.  In  his  dull  mind  he  connects  all 
such  attempts  with  the  tax  collector,  his  arch-enemy, 
and  from  the  latter  he  naturally  hides  all  facts  and  fig- 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        115 

ures  which  might  enable  that  official  to  "squeeze" 
some  additional  roubles  out  of  him.  The  above  figures 
cannot  very  well  be  true,  because  if  they  were  many 
more  millions  of  Russian  peasants  would  have  starved 
to  death  before  now  than  have  actually  done  so. 

But  what  an  awful  curse  to  the  country  this  steadily 
proceeding  diminution  per  head  of  peasant  land  has 
been  and  is,  may  be  clearly  seen  in  some  of  the  formerly 
most  flourishing  agricultural  districts,  as,  for  instance, 
in  those  of  I^ittle  Russia.  In  years  gone  by  the  peasant 
farmer  in  that  part  of  the  country  considered  a  holding 
of  from  forty-five  to  fifty  dessyatines  as  necessary  to 
yield  him  living  profits.  Relatively  few  of  these  peas- 
ant farms  in  I/ittle  Russia  comprised  less  than  sixty- five 
dessyatines;  from  that  they  have  dwindled  to  an  average 
of  eight.  There,  as  throughout  the  entire  corn  belt  of 
European  Russia,  formerly  amongst  the  most  fertile  in 
the  world,  the  soil  has  been  subjected  for  many  years, 
in  certain  districts  for  centuries,  to  such  wasteful  meth- 
ods that  it  has  become  barren  or  exhausted.  Within 
the  last  forty  years  alone  the  productivity  of  the  soil 
within  the  ' '  black-earth  belt ' '  has  been  reduced  by 
fully  one-third. 

Another  great  evil,  intimately  connected  with  the 
above,  is  the  rural  communal  system  under  which  Rus- 
sia's peasantry  are  still  living.  This  peculiarly  Rus- 
sian institution  has  been  raised  by  ill-advised  Russian 
writers  to  the  rank  of  a  national  fetish.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  this  system  has  been  the  direct  or  indirect  cause 


ii6  Russia 

of  the  death  and  misery  of  many  millions.  As  to  the 
false  claim  that  it  is  very  ancient,  a  survival  and  direct 
descendant  of  pristine  Aryan  rural  institutions,  Russian 
history  itself  disproves  it  completely.  The  truth  is 
that  individual  peasant  proprietorship  in  the  soil  has 
during  the  past  three  hundred  years  been  gradually 
abolished  by  the  Russian  government.  Before  that  the 
Russian  peasant  was  the  free  owner  both  of  his  person 
and  his  lands.  For  purely  technical  and  administrative 
purposes  the  central  government  changed  this  step  by 
step  and  district  by  district;  it  enjoined  communal  re- 
sponsibility for  the  taxes,  in  order  to  insure  the  easy 
and  safe  inflowing  of  the  administrative  revenues.  Serf- 
dom itself  was  an  outgrowth  of  this  innovation.  But 
so  slow  was  the  thorough  carrying-out  of  this  great 
change  that  in  some  districts  in  the  north  of  European 
Russia  the  system  of  communal  ownership  had  not  been 
introduced  up  to  1830  and  later,  and  the  peasants  there 
had  to  be  treated  as  rioters  and  traitors  to  the  state  for 
forcibly  resisting  the  measure.  The  joint  proprietor- 
ship of  the  rural  acres  has  been  protected  by  the  gov- 
ernment until  the  present.  By  a  law  of  December  14, 
1893,  it  is  provided  that  the  easier  methods  of  acquiring 
individual  land  by  the  peasant,  such  as  the  law  of  186 1 
decreed,  were  to  be  abrogated  and  such  purchases,  even 
in  exceptional  cases,  to  be  made  dependent  on  the  con- 
sent of  the  commune  and  on  the  specific  sanction  of  the 
ministers  of  the  interior  and  finance.  The  evident  mo- 
tive for  this  was  that  only  the  diligent  and  relatively 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        117 

prosperous  peasant  member  of  a  commune  could  ever 
think  of  separating  from  the  latter  and  acquiring  indi- 
vidual property  in  land.  By  such  separation,  therefore, 
each  commune  would  lose  its  most  progressive  and  in- 
dustrious members,  and  the  burden  of  taxation  would 
then  rest  with  additional  weight  on  the  remaining 
members,  thus  disturbing  the  tax  and  revenue  system 
of  the  government  very  seriously. 

Under  present  conditions  the  ambitious  peasant  can- 
not aspire  to  individual  ownership  in  land;  he  cannot 
exert  his  greater  initiative,  enterprise,  superior  mental 
gifts,  and  diligence  to  his  own  advantage,  and  the  pre- 
vailing system  robs  the  government  and  the  country  as 
a  whole  of  all  the  fruits  which  would  naturally  accrue 
to  the  more  pushing  and  successful  portion  of  the  peas- 
antry. The  better  man  must  continue  to  suffer  for  the 
faults  and  shortcomings  of  his  less  able  neighbour;  he 
must  make  up  for  the  taxes  which  his  unprogressive  or 
unfortunate  fellow-member  of  the  commune  has  failed 
to  earn.  Rational  progress  in  rural  communities  is 
simply  impossible  under  such  circumstances.  Much 
has  been  made  by  unwise  Russian  jingoes  of  the  Rus- 
sian mir.  It  has  been  represented  by  them  as  something 
in  which  Russia  is  far  in  advance  of  Europe,  something 
which  western  countries  would  do  well  to  take  pattern 
by,  and  which  the  benighted  world  of  non-Russians  is 
looking  upon  with  envy.  The  exact  opposite  is  the 
truth.  As  we  have  seen,  the  Russian  rural  communal 
system  is  a  species  of  particularly  harmful  atavism;  a 


ii8  Russia 

step  not  in  advance,  but  leading  back  to  the  darkest 
Middle  Ages.  That  this  is  true  many  cool-headed  and 
unbiassed  Russians  themselves  admit.  The  movement 
in  Russia  for  the  abolishment  of  this  system  has  gained 
tremendous  strength  during  the  past  score  of  years. 
On  its  final  success,  it  is  perfectly  safe  to  say,  hinges  in 
good  part  the  question  of  the  rise  of  Russia  to  more 
modern  and  prosperous  conditions. 

Even  the  central  government  in  St.  Petersburg  has 
at  times  shown  evidence  of  being  won  over  to  this 
view.  The  abolition  of  the  existing  system  of  joint 
ownership  in  the  soil  and  of  joint  responsibility  for  the 
communal  taxes  has  been  advocated  by  more  than  one 
responsible  Russian  statesman.  M.  de  Witte  himself, 
in  a  pamphlet  printed  in  German  a  number  of  years 
ago,  and  published  in  Stuttgart,  avowed  himself  an  ad- 
herent to  this  reform.  That  was,  of  course,  before  he 
had  pledged  himself  unalterably  to  his  present  financial 
system.  Goremykin,  one-time  member  of  the  Russian 
cabinet,  likewise  espoused  this  cause  in  his  writings, 
and   many  other  men  in  high  government   positions 

» 

have  done  the  same. 

Everywhere  in  Russia  the  signs  multiply  pointing  to 
the  approaching  end  of  this  suicidal  communal  system. 
Certainly,  things  have  come  to  such  a  pass  in  Russian 
agriculture  that  they  cannot  go  on  much  longer  at  the 
present  rate  without  involving  the  whole  nation  in  the 
growing  misery  of  its  most  important  and  numerous 
section  of  the  total  population,  the  peasantry. 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        119 

Communal  ownership,  including  that  of  the  tillable 
soil  subdivided  in  such  a  manner  as  to  grant  to  each 
member  of  the  community  a  strip  of  land,  larger  or 
smaller,  for  cultivation,  until  such  time  as  the  mir  (vil- 
lage council)  should  decide  on  a  redivision,  was  brought 
about  by  very  practical  reasons,  but  also  reasons  which 
in  the  long  run  told  against  the  good  of  the  commune 
itself  and  of  the  country.  The  Russian  jingo  has  at- 
tempted to  represent  the  system  as  surrounded  by  an 
aureole  of  democratic  social  equality.  All  peasants,  all 
members  of  the  community,  are  to  be  on  an  equal  foot- 
ing, that  is  his  claim.  But  as  everywhere,  so  here, 
too,  human  nature  has  not  endured  this  ideal  of 
equality  for  a  long  space.  On  the  contrary,  inequality 
was  at  once  established.  It  did  not  require  much  time 
after  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs,  until  there  were  to 
be  found  in  each  village  some  ex-serfs  poor  and  some 
less  poor,  some  in  miserable  straits  and  some  on  the 
highroad  to  prosperity.  On  the  one  side  the  process 
of  pauperisation  proceeded  apace,  and  this  with  the 
continued  subdivision  of  land  brought  many  of  the 
members  of  each  community  lower  and  lower;  so  that 
an  increasing  number  of  peasants  lost  first  their  horse, 
then  their  cow,  next  their  agricultural  implements,  and 
then  were  driven  either  to  adopt  another  calling  beside 
that  of  cultivating  the  soil  in  order  to  make  a  living  or 
else  to  abandon  their  little  strip  of  land  and  find  em- 
ployment as  labourers  in  village  or  town .  This  pro- 
cess, steadily  proceeding  for  the  last  forty  years  and 


I20  Russia 

over,  culminated  in  a  "differentiation"  among  the 
peasantry. 

On  the  other  side  arose  the  kulak  (literally,  the 
"fist"),  a  name  coined  to  designate  those  ex-serfs 
and  simple  peasants  who,  utilising  the  unpropitious 
economical  conditions  of  their  fellow-members  of  the 
commune,  made  one  after  the  other  their  debtors,  next 
their  hired  labourers,  and  appropriated  for  their  own 
individual  use  the  land  shares  of  these  economical 
weaklings. 

The  kulak  is  a  very  interesting  figure  in  rural  Russia. 
Whole  libraries  have  been  written  in  Russia  denounc- 
ing him.  And,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  methods 
used  by  this  usujer  and  oppressor  in  the  peasant's 
blouse  have  not  been  of  the  cleanest.  His  advent  hap- 
pened, as  pointed  out  above,  soon  after  the  emancipation 
itself.  But  the  conspicuous  position  he  now  occupies 
came  about  during  the  last  twenty  and  thirty  years. 
In  Russian  literature  he  has  been  dubbed  the  ' '  village- 
eater,"  and  has  been  clothed  with  all  sorts  of  diabolical 
qualities.  He  has  been  described  as  the  bitter  foe  of 
the  national  heirloom,  the  rural  commune,  and  has 
been  fought  with  fair  means  and  foul.  But  the  kulak 
would  not  down.  And  this  for  a  very  simple  reason: 
He  is  the  natural  product  of  a  vicious  system;  in  a 
manner  he  represents  the  natural  law  of  evolution  and 
progress,  though  in  his  person  and  methods  he  dis- 
torts this  natural  law,  being  hampered  by  all  sorts  of 
obstacles. 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        121 

Nevertheless,  the  more  subdivision  of  the  communal 
acres  went  on,  and  the  more  the  peasant  was  compelled 
to  look  for  a  living  beyond  the  tilling  of  his  little  strip 
of  land,  the  smaller  the  results  of  this  tilling  became, 
and  the  more  frequently  famine  overtook  communes, 
whole  districts,  and  provinces,  the  easier  it  became  for 
the  kulak  to  have  and  to  maintain  the  upper  hand 
within  his  small  sphere  of  activity.  The  more  difficult, 
too,  it  became  for  the  mir  to  concentrate  against  the 
kulak  the  two- thirds  of  the  totality  of  votes  required  by 
law  to  oust  him  from  those  lands  acquired  by  him 
usuriously  or  by  other  devious  ways. 

During  the  eighties  the  process  here  outlined  had 
already  progressed  to  the  extent  that  in  twenty- two 
Central  Russian  provinces  (where  the  government  in- 
stituted an  investigation)  thirteen  per  cent,  of  all 
peasant  holdings  were  entirely  without  cattle,  and  it 
was  found  that  1,100,000  peasant  households  had  no 
horses.  In  these  same  provinces  during  the  last  ten 
years,  as  official  statistics  show,  the  number  of  horses 
has  diminished  by  another  1,393,400,  that  is,  by 
twenty-one  and  one-half  per  cent,  in  the  Eastern  and 
by  twenty-nine  per  cent,  in  the  Central  "  black-earth 
belt";  the  number  of  peasant  households  without 
horses  had  increased  by  185,100.  This  means  more 
than  appears  on  the  face.  It  means  the  results  of  the 
kulak's  labours.  The  peasants  who  with  their  families 
were  registered  by  the  government  as  the  nominal 
owners  of  pauperised  holdings,    have  simply,   for  a 


122  Russia 

consideration,  left  the  exploitation  of  their  lands  to  the 
financially  more  potent  and  enterprising  kulak,  and 
have  become  either  his  hired  labourers  or  else  have 
gone  to  town  to  earn  a  living;  in  many  cases,  too,  the 
practically  expropriated  peasants  are  combining  the 
two  functions  of  hired  rural  labourers  during  the  sum- 
mer and  industrial  laborers  in  town  during  the  winter. 

Statistics  taken,  and  special  researches  made  by  the 
government  everywhere  in  European  Russia,  have  dis- 
closed similar  facts,  differing  only  in  degree.  Thus,  for 
instance,  an  investigation  in  1891  made  in  five  "  black- 
earth  "  provinces,  namely,  Chernigoff,  Voronesh,  Pol- 
tava, Saratoff,  and  Kursk,  showed  that  of  the  915,140 
peasant  households  in  question  twenty-five  per  cent, 
were  without  cattle  and  horses,  another  twenty-six  per 
cent,  had  only  one  head  of  cattle  or  horse,  and  forty- 
nine  per  cent  had  two  or  more  heads.  In  sixteen 
provinces  of  the  East  and  South  the  number  of  peasant 
farms  without  animal  help  of  any  kind  rose  by  3.6  per 
cent,  between  1882  and  1891;  during  the  last  ten  years, 
with  their  frequent  famines,  these  figures  have  risen 
enormously. 

The  kulak,  as  was  said,  though  individually  perhaps 
not  a  lovable  specimen  of  humanity,  nevertheless 
stands  in  rural  Russia  for  the  principle  of  progress. 
Individual  ownership  in  the  soil  once  established,  Rus- 
sian agricultural  conditions,  freed  from  their  present 
fetters,  would  enter  on  a  normal  progressive  course. 
Many  additional  thousands  of  economically  weak  farms 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        123 

would  pass  definitely  into  other  hands,  but  the  peasan- 
try as  a  whole  would  profit  by  that.  Farms  and  indi- 
vidual holdings  of  land  would  gain  in  size,  and  the 
present  system,  obtaining  with  the  vast  majority  of 
Russian  peasants,  of  leading  a  hand-to-mouth  life, 
would  cease.  Communal  joint  ownership  promotes 
only  the  evil  qualities  in  man:  sloth,  carelessness,  mis- 
management; it  suppresses  the  economical  virtues: 
diligence,  economy,  individual  enterprise.  This  great 
curse  removed,  natural  conditions  of  agrarian  devel- 
opment, kept  back  for  three  hundred  years  by  artifi- 
cial and  mechanical  impediments,  would  be  restored. 

The  rise  of  a  sort  of  peasant  aristocracy  (at  present 
represented  by  the  kulak)  we  have  traced  in  the  above. 
But  this  is  as  yet  neither  numerous  nor  encouraged  by 
laws;  on  the  contrary,  conditions  at  this  hour  hinder 
its  spread.  For  it  is  not  only  the  question  of  joint  own- 
ership in  land  which  makes  against  such  an  aristocra- 
cy; in  equal  measure  joint  tax  responsibility  and  the 
enormously  high  rate  of  land  taxation  tell  against  it. 
Taxes,  indeed,  weigh  with  crushing  force  upon  the 
economically  ruined  Russian  peasantry  of  the  lower 
grade. 

As  to  the  question  of  joint  tax  responsibility,  there 
is  no  possible  doubt,  and  the  facts  are  well  ascertained. 
If  joint  communal  ownership  works  great  harm,  joint 
tax  responsibility  works  perhaps  even  greater.  Hand 
in  hand  with  abolishment  of  the  present  communal 
system,  will  go  the  abolishment  of  the  other. 


124  Russia 

The  present  burden  of  land  taxation,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  a  matter  which  it  is  not  so  easy  to  determine 
in  its  full  details.  The  facts  taken  in  their  entirety 
warrant  us  in  saying  that  with  the  prevailing  rural  sys- 
tem still  in  force,  that  is,  with  a  financially  impotent 
peasantry,  the  present  Russian  land  tax  is  unequivo- 
cally too  high.  But  as  to  details,  sources  and  authori- 
ties differ  so  greatly  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  make 
positive  statements.  A  number  of  Russian  economic 
writers  of  the  first  rank,  such,  for  instance,  as  Nikolai- 
On,  Simkhovitch,  Schwauebach,  Brcheski,  Lokhtin, 
and  others,  in  recent  writings  quote  facts  and  figures 
apparently  obtained  from  reliable  data — in  every  case 
based  on  government  material — which  show  a  picture 
of  Russian  rural  misery  so  sombre  and  full  of  despair 
that  the  human  mind  is  loth  to  accept  it  as  true.  There 
are  other  writers  in  Russia  whose  accounts  are  in  a  some- 
what more  hopeful  vein,  but  even  their  statistics  pre- 
sent horrible  outlines.  One  fact  to  be  again  taken  into 
consideration  in  this  connection  is  the  unreliability  of 
even  Russian  ofl5cial  statistics,  a  fact  previously  alluded 
to,  and  the  great  cunning  of  the  Russian  peasant  in 
withholding  or  concealing  property  of  every  kind  from 
the  tax  gatherer,  and  the  falsifying  of  returns  made  by 
him  as  to  his  crops  and  the  productivity  of  his  land. 
Taking,  therefore,  all  these  things  into  account,  and 
making  due  allowance  for  the  unreliability  of  the  data 
at  hand,  enough  remains  without  dispute  to  demon- 
strate that  the  one  hundred  millions  of  Russia's  peasant 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        125 

population  are  in  a  condition  so  low  and  apparently  so 
hopeless  that  modern  history  scarcely  affords  a  parallel. 

The  few  figures  appearing  hereafter  in  illustration  of 
this  have  been  obtained  by  a  strict  process  of  elimina- 
tion, and  are  without  exception  official.  But  for  a  gen- 
eral presentation  of  the  leading  causes  of  rural  misery 
the  remarkable  report  of  M.  Novikoflf,  a  zemski  yiatchal- 
nik  (an  influential  official  controlling  peasant  affairs  in 
each  province),  is  in  the  main  relied  upon.  This  re- 
port has  virtues  which  the  others  referred  to  do  not 
possess,  namely,  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  peasant 
affairs  obtained  at  first  hand,  and  likewise  a  spirit  of 
transparent  impartiality. 

Novikoff  tells  us  that  in  the  whole  "black-earth  belt" 
the  land  tax  per  head  of  male  rural  population  amounts 
to  about  eight  to  nine  roubles  yearly,  which  means  an 
average  of  four  to  four  and  one-half  roubles  per  dessya- 
tine  of  cultivated  land,  or  a  trifle  more  than  half  the 
annual  rental  of  such  land.  In  the  tax  burden  is  com- 
prised everything  which  the  peasant  has  to  pay  in  legal 
dues,  that  is,  not  only  the  government  land  tax,  but 
also  the  redemption  tax  (that  is,  the  annual  instalments 
still  owing  from  the  ex-serfs  and  their  children  and 
grandchildren  to  the  government  for  the  land  given 
them,  forty-three  years  ago,  at  the  time  of  emancipa- 
tion), provincial  and  communal  taxes.  This  same 
authority  claims  that  in  the  industrial  districts  of  the 
empire  and  in  the  lake  districts  to  the  North,  the 
amount  of  taxes  often  exceeds  the  net  returns  of  the  soil 


126  Russia 

itself.  In  many  cases,  lie  says,  the  peasant  would  will- 
ingly abandon  his  land  on  a  quit-claim  deed,  absolving 
him  from  all  further  financial  responsibilities.  But  the 
communal  system  will  not  permit  that.  The  lack  of 
rational  agricultural  methods,  due  partly  to  ignorance 
on  the  peasant's  part,  but  in  larger  measure  to  the  sub- 
division of  holdings  spoken  of  before,  is  another  element 
of  prime  importance  in  the  pauperisation  process.  Soil 
has  been  cultivated  for  centuries  without  once  receiving 
new  nourishment  in  the  shape  of  manure,  and  exhaus- 
tion of  its  chemically  valuable  properties  has  set  in  in 
varying  degree. 

In  a  country  showing  a  scarcity  of  large  and  indus- 
trious towns — towns,  too,  separated  from  each  other  by 
distances  often  measured  by  hundreds  of  miles,  and  in- 
accessible from  the  interior  rural  districts  except  by  a 
weary  trudge  on  foot  along  sandy  or  morass-like  roads 
— auxiliary  earnings  for  the  peasant  are  diflBcult  to  ob- 
tain. Nevertheless,  the  peasant,  alone  or  with  his  elder 
sons,  seldom  accompanied  by  wife  or  small  children, 
undertakes  annual  tramps  to  towns,  leaving  his  unpro- 
ductive land  to  be  tended  by  his  family  and  earning 
during  the  summer  a  matter  of  twenty  or  thirty  rou- 
bles, often  but  ten  or  twelve,  as  chance  has  favoured 
him,  and  then  returns  home  in  the  fall  to  satisfy  the 
tax  collector.  We  may  well  believe  Novikoflf  when  he 
says  that  the  period  when  the  taxes  become  due  is  one 
of  greatest  anxiety  to  the  Russian  peasant.  In  his 
report  this  official  speaks  at  length  of  the  many  forms 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        127 

of  corruption,  crude  or  mild,  to  which  the  poor  peasant 
is  exposed.  In  doing  so  he  unconsciously  deals  heavy 
blows  to  the  purely  centralised  and  bureaucratic  form 
of  Russian  government. 

Incidentally,  the  report  calls  attention  to  one  execra- 
ble feature  of  this  bureaucratism,  namely,  its  uniform 
pressure   upon   the  whole  empire,  irrespective  of  the 
great  differences  in  local  conditions.     Thus,  the  tax  is 
levied  and  gathered  in  the  early  fall,  during  September 
as  a  rule,  and  the  peasant  is  forced  to  sell  part  of  his 
crop  for  what  it  will  fetch  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the 
government.     In  many  cases,  prices  being  low,  due  to 
vast  amounts  of  agricultural  products  being  thrown 
simultaneously  on  the  market,  and  also  because  of  the 
unscrupulousness  of  the  local  dealers,  the  peasant  has 
to  sell  his  entire  crop  and  add  to  it  part  of  the  slender 
earnings  he  has  saved  during  the  preceding  months,  in 
order  to  make  up  the  full  amount  owing  the  central 
and  local  governments  for  land  tax  and  for  arrears  left 
over  from  the  previous  year  or  years.     But  not  this 
alone,  those  districts  which  have  not  yet  reaped  their 
harvest  are  also  compelled  to  pay  taxes  at  this  time. 
The  Russian  tobacco,  for  instance,  is  harvested  at  a 
later  time  in  the  year,  and  cultivators  are  obliged  to 
borrow  at  heavy  discount.    Fishing  villages  (and  there 
are  thousands  of  them  in  Russia,  depending  for  their 
prosperity  on  the  catch  of  certain  fish  at  a  particular 
season  or  month)  are  afflicted  with  similar  disadvan- 
tages.    In  November  many  of  these  districts  would 


128  Russia 

have  the  money  for  their  taxes,  but  meanwhile  they 
are  fined  again  and  again  by  the  ispravnik  (police  com- 
missioner), acting  on  the  reports  of  tax  delinquencies 
made  by  the  ouriadnik  (rural  police  oflScial),  and  when 
their  money  begins  to  come  in  there  are  new  charges  to 
be  met.  Russian  bureaucracy  takes  account  of  none  of 
these  things :  from  the  White  to  the  Black  Sea  the 
taxes  throughout  the  vast  empire  have  to  be  paid  on 
a  certain  day,  no  matter  if  this  should  mean  ruin  to 
thousands  of  rural  communities. 

And  yet  despite  all  this  pressure  coming  from  police 
and  tax  collector,  despite  heavy  fines  and  ofiicial  brow- 
beating, arrears  are  unavoidable.  The  peasant  often 
finds  it  simply  impossible  to  raise  the  amount  of  his 
taxes.  The  public  sale  of  his  last  bits  of  personal' 
property  is  threatened,  and  the  peasant  borrows  money 
on  almost  any  conditions,  or  else  sells  the  most  neces- 
sary things  for  what  they  will  bring.  Novikoflf  says 
that  the  peasant  would  look  upon  a  usurer  lending  him 
money  at  this  time  at  thirty  per  cent,  as  a  benefactor. 
Nevertheless  arrears  of  taxes  increase  year  by  year, 
and  this  particularly  in  the  great  "  black-earth  belt" 
of  Central  Russia.  These  peasant  arrears  of  taxes 
amounted  in  1893  in  forty-six  out  of  the  seventy-one 
provinces  of  European  Russia  to  119/^  million  roubles, 
1 10  of  which  fell  to  the  share  of  the  Centre.  These 
arrears  were,  of  course,  very  unevenly  apportioned,  and 
in  the  provinces  of  Oufa,  Kasan,  Orenburg,  and  Samara 
they  exceeded  the  annual  taxes  themselves  by  two  hun- 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        129 

dred  or  three  hundred  per  cent.  In  1896  these  arrears 
were  142^  millions,  despite  the  fact  that  a  year  before 
eight  millions  had  been  remitted. 

It  is  owing  to  the  unfortunate  economical  conditions 
of  the  Russian  peasant  that  he  has  also  been  unable  to 
pay  up  his  redemption  tax.  This  item  on  January  2, 
1901,  had  risen  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  million  rou- 
bles, arrearages  independent  of  the  above  named.  Dur- 
ing the  year  1901 — a  year  of  extensive  famines,  as  will 
be  remembered — both  land  and  redemption  tax  arrear- 
ages increased  largely. 

To  all  these  drawbacks  must  be  added  the  deleterious 
effects  upon  Russia's  peasantry  of  the  new  financial 
system,  first  inaugurated  in  a  mild  way  by  Bunge,  dur- 
ing the  administration  of  Alexander  III.,  and  then 
brought  to  its  present  heights  by  Wishnegradsky  and 
Witte.  We  have  seen  that  the  latter  all  along  has  bent 
his  energies  to  the  task  of  maintaining,  first,  the  gold 
standard  established  by  him,  and  next  (as  a  necessary 
corollary)  the  excess  of  exports  over  imports.  To  keep 
these  exports  at  a  certain  height  Witte  found  it  not 
only  expedient,  but  absolutely  necessary  to  spur  on  the 
Russian  agricultural  producer  in  the  sale  and  export  of 
his  commodities.  That  brought  about  the  regular  ap- 
pearance of  the  tax  gatherer  early  in  the  fall,  just  after 
the  crop  had  been  harvested,  and  the  consequences  of 
that  measure  we  have  traced  above.  Let  us  now  see  a 
little  more  in  detail  how  the  system  operates. 

In  autumns  when  cereals  are  low-priced,  the  Russian 


130  Russia 

peasant  has  to  sell  larger  quantities  of  his  produce  to 
make  up  his  taxes.     He  thus  denudes  himself  of  all  re- 
serves in  foodstuffs,  and  later  in  the  winter  he  has  to 
repurchase  enough  of  the  latter  at  increased  prices  to 
keep  him  from  starving;   his  seed  corn  he  must,  of 
course,  pay  for  at  still  higher  rates  in  the  early  spring. 
On  the  other  hand,  those  years  when  cereals  command 
high  prices  are  almost  always  years  of  deficient  crops 
in  Russia  and,  consequently,  years  of  famine.     Thus, 
prices  ruled  high  during  the  Russian  famine  years  of 
1891  and  1892,  but  the  starving  peasant  had  nothing  to 
sell.     In  1894,  a  year  of  great  plenty  in  Russia,  local 
prices  fell  enormously.     In  the  province  of  Samara  that 
year  the  pood  of  wheat  sold  at  sixty  kopeks  up  to  one 
and  one-half  roubles,  and  rye  sold  there  at  even  less 
than  half  these  prices.     In  the  year  following,  1895, 
cereals  were  even  lower  in  Russia.     Along  the  Volga 
the  pood  sold  at  eleven  to  nineteen  kopeks,  and  in  the 
province  of  Poltava  barley  (the  main  cereal  there)  at 
nine  kopeks  the  pood.     Of  course,  the  lower  the  prices 
of  cereals,  the  more  of  them  had  to  be  exported  in  order 
to  maintain  the  favourable  balance  of  trade  and  to  in- 
crease the  gold  reserve  of  the  state. 

This  export  movement  in  cereals  can  be  quite  clearly 
shown.  In  1864,  Russia  exported  in  breadstufis  i2i>^ 
million  pood,  of  the  value  of  547^  millions,  which 
meant  about  thirty-three  per  cent,  of  her  entire  export. 
Between  1882  and  1887  was  exported  an  average  of  312 
million  pood  yearly  of  cereals.     Then  came  Wishne- 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        131 

gradsky  with  his  artificially  strengthened  export,  yield- 
ing an  annual  average  until  1891  of  442  million  pood. 
Under  Witte's  administration  this  cereal  export  rose 
till  1897  to  an  annual  average  of  523  million  pood.    This 
meant  during  certain  years  one- fourth  of  the  entire 
cereal  production  of  the  Russian  Empire.     Of  this  ttie 
peasant  furnished  350  million  pood,  the  remainder  of 
one  third  coming  from  the  estates  of  the  nobles  and 
from  Crown  domains.    Since  then  export  cereal  figures 
have  gone  on  rising.    During  1894  the  figure  was  639^^ 
million  pood  and  575  in  1895.     How  perfectly  incapa- 
ble Russia,  devoid  of  capital,  is  to  retain  for  future  use 
a  considerable  part  of  her  cereal  treasure,  is  proven  by 
the  fact  that  the  export  does  not  decrease,  and  in  some 
cases  actually  increases,  during  famine  times.     During 
the  worst  famine  year,  that  of  1891 ,  the  export  decreased 
by  only  twenty-seven  million  pood.    In  1897  Russia  had 
a  deficient  crop,  but  during  the  last  six  months  of  that 
year  233^^   million  pood  were  exported,  that  is,  more 
than  during  the  same  period  of  preceding  good  years; 
and  during  the  first  six  months  of  1898  were  exported 
another  241)^    million  pood,  more  than  the  average. 
In    1901  the  government,  early  in  the  summer,  was 
thoroughly  apprised  of  the  fact  that  the  crop  would  fail 
in  a  large  part  of  Russia.     The  budget  report  for  1901 
showed  a  total  cereal  production  of  the  empire  amount- 
ing to  3050  million  pood,  a  deficiency  of  236  millions 
when  compared  with  the  average  of  the  preceding  five 
years.     This  deficiency  was  just  about  one-half  of  the 


132  Russia 

average  cereal  export.  Nevertheless,  the  cereal  export 
rose  in  1901,  The  simple  explanation  of  this  apparent 
phenomenon  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  Russian  population 
was  financially  impotent  to  retain  at  home  enough 
breadstufis  to  feed  her  hungry  masses. 

tn  this  connection  it  may  be  well  to  cite  I^okhtin's 
figures  as  to  the  annual  per  capita  production  of  cereals 
(including  potatoes)  of  the  fifty  provinces  making  up 
the  heart  of  the  empire.  These  figures  are  22.4  pood 
of  total  production,  and  18.8  pood  after  the  deduction 
of  exports,  which  means  a  lower  figure  of  breadstufFs 
per  head  of  population  than  in  any  civilised  country  of 
modern  times.  It  needs  no  words  to  point  out  that 
with  such  a  low  average  of  consumption  the  peasant 
can  retain  no  considerable  surplus. 

To  put  the  matter  in  a  nutshell:  By  far  the  greater 
part  of  the  Russian  people  are  constantly  underfed  or 
starving  for  the  benefit  of  government  finances;  and 
this  purely  because  the  peasant  is  too  poor  to  keep  for 
his  own  use  (after  paying  his  taxes)  enough  bread. 

The  above  figures  seem  almost  incredible,  for  we  find 
nothing  like  them  in  the  official  statistics  of  other  coun- 
tries; but  these  figures  seem,  nevertheless,  to  be  borne 
out  by  the  cold  facts.  They  constitute  a  surprising 
testimony  to  the  want  of  harmony  in  Russia  between 
national  finances  and  national  economy.  Nowhere  else 
do  we  see  the  astounding  circumstance  that  the  private 
soldier  is  fed  much  more  liberally  and  on  far  more  nu- 
tritious food  than  falls  to  the  share  of  the  vast  bulk  of 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        133 

the  population.  We  cannot  wonder  at  the  fact  that  the 
young  Russian  peasant  in  joining  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  enormous  national  army  for  a  term  of  years,  looks 
upon  his  lot  not  only  with  complacency,  but  with  actual 
joy.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  can  eat  his  fill. 
As  a  peasant  the  Russian  recruit  saw  meat  only  thrice  a 
year;  cabbage,  sour  rye  bread,  and  grits  formed  his  diet, 
washed  down,  now  and  then  in  summer,  with  inexpen- 
sive and  innutritions  qvas  (a  slightly  fermented  cereal 
decoction).  As  a  soldier  he  receives  per  year  twenty- 
nine  pood  of  grits  and  flour  (eleven  pood  more  than 
the  national  average)  and  meat — bacon — in  proportion. 

Meat  production  in  Russia  has  decreased,  while  all 
over  Europe  and  in  the  United  States  it  has  vastly  in- 
creased. During  1888  to  1898  the  number  of  cattle  has 
actually  diminished  in  Russia  by  almost  one  per  cent., 
despite  the  increase  in  population  and  despite  the  vast 
steppes  and  grazing  grounds  of  her  nomad  hordes  in 
the  South  and  South-east.  Russia  to-day  consumes  in 
beef  fully  one-third  less  per  head  of  population  than 
does  Germany,  one-half  less  than  England,  and  over 
sixty  per  cent,  less  than  the  United  States.  The  case 
stands  similar  in  the  matter  of  the  raising  of  sheep, 
swine,  and  horses;  that  also  decreases  steadily  every 
year,  and  per  head  of  population  the  decrease  is  still 
more  considerable. 

The  latest  oflScial  researches,  quoted  by  Polenoff", 
have  shown  that  within  the  last  ten  years  horses  have 
decreased  within  the  nine  provinces  of  the  Centre  proper 


134  Russia 

by  117,000,  in  the  East  (four  provinces)  by  68,000,  and 
a  similar  proportion  of  decrease  has  been  observed  in 
all  the  other  Russian  provinces.  But  as  a  remarkable 
fact — remarkable  because  it  shows  the  extreme  poverty 
of  the  country — it  deserves  mention  that  in  spite  of  this 
uniform  decrease  the  export  of  cattle,  horses,  swine — 
live  stock  as  well  as  in  the  form  of  meat,  hides,  tallow, 
etc. — is  steadily  rising.  And  instead  of  seeing  in  this 
deplorable  fact  a  sign  calling  for  ameliorating  measures, 
the  Russian  government — more  particularly  its  finance 
minister — rejoices  at  this  growing  export  and  strives 
to  promote  it  in  every  possible  way. 

Thus,  in  October,  1901,  M.  de  Witte  in  conjunction 
with  the  department  of  agriculture  took  elaborate  steps 
to  further  the  export  of  Russian  butter  and  meat  to 
England.  A  commission  of  thirty  agricultural  experts 
was  sent  to  London,  at  an  expense  to  the  government 
of  fifty  thousand  roubles,  to  organise  this  export.  Of 
course,  it  was  money  utterly  wasted.  Russian  meat 
particularly,  coming  as  it  does  from  underfed  cattle,  is 
entirely  too  tough  and  sapless  to  suit  the  British  palate, 
notoriously  the  hardest  to  please  in  the  matter  of  meat. 

As  the  Russian  peasant  is  not  able  to  live  ofi"  the  pro- 
ceeds of  his  bit  of  land,  he  is  obliged  to  earn  money 
elsewhere  and  to  leave  the  care  of  his  few  acres  to  his 
wife  and  children.  It  is,  however,  very  difficult  for  him 
to  find  remunerative  employment  away  from  his  home. 
In  Central  Russia  the  whole  industry  is  concentrated  in 
Moscow  and  in  a  few  towns  situated  in  the  adjoining 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        135 

three  or  four  provinces.  Outside  of  the  industrial 
Centre  such  establishments  are  few  and  far  between, 
lying  often  hundreds,  naj--,  thousands  of  verst  apart. 
For  the  metal  works  of  Tula  and  Bransk  are  not  con- 
siderable, and  the  collieries  and  smelting  works  of  the 
Donetz  lie  far  to  the  North.  In  any  event,  the  whole 
of  Russian  industry  employs  at  present  (that  is,  during 
prosperous  times)  only  between  two  and  three  millions 
of  both  sexes.  What  does  that  amount  to  when  com- 
pared with  a  needy  peasant  population  of  over  one 
hundred  millions  ? 

The  "black-earth  belt"  is  entirely  dependent  on 
agriculture,  and  the  mass  of  the  peasantry  there,  so  far 
as  they  cannot  utilise  their  time  in  the  before-mentioned 
domestic  industry  and  in  the  svietelka,  have  to  go  idle 
during  one-half  the  year.  It  is  estimated  (both  by 
Mulhall  and  Golovine)  that  the  average  earnings  of 
the  Russian  peasant  do  not  exceed  eighteen  to  nineteen 
kopeks  per  diem,  or  about  nine  to  ten  cents.  In  an- 
other chapter  we  have  seen  the  reasons  for  the  down- 
fall of  the  rural  domestic  industr}%  the  cottage  system. 
During  the  past  score  of  years  Russian  agriculture  has 
more  and  more  been  given  over  to  the  production  of 
cereals.  The  peasant  no  longer  grows  flax  or  hemp, 
nor  does  he  raise  sheep  to  utilise  their  fleece,  excepting 
in  a  minimal  way,  barely  sufficient  to  meet  the  wants 
of  his  family. 

The  contrast  is  indeed  a  striking  one  between  the 
Russian  rural  commune,  shackling  its  members  eco- 


136  Russia 

nomically,  and  the  centralising  state,  which  exacts 
large  taxes  in  money.  This  contrast  explains  the  lack 
of  material  development  as  well  as  the  want  of  a 
growth  in  individual  energy.  This  fact  is  illustrated 
in  colonies,  single  villages,  and  certain  districts,  scat- 
tered through  various  outlying  provinces  of  Russia  in 
Europe  and  Asia.  There  the  communal  system  of 
joint  ownership  and  responsibility  has  been  done  away 
with,  and  the  consequence  has  been  relative  or  positive 
prosperity.  Even  such  a  zealous  advocate  of  Old  Rus- 
sian prejudices  and  real  or  imaginary  peculiarly  Rus- 
sian institutions  as  is  Prince  Mestcherski  could  not  fail 
to  note  this  difference.  Writing  about  certain  free 
Russian  colonies  and  settlements  along  the  Lower 
Volga,  he  grew  quite  enthusiastic  in  the  Grashdanin  of 
St.  Petersburg.  Again,  another  illustration.  Russia 
possesses  vast  German  colonies.  Some  of  these  are  lo- 
cated in  the  South-west,  others  in  the  Caucasus,  others 
on  the  Volga.  In  the  latter  they  have  adopted  the 
Russian  communal  system;  result,  misery,  slovenli- 
ness, loss  of  industry.  Those  in  the  South  and  South- 
west have  stuck  to  the  rural  system  of  their  Suabian 
forefathers,  retaining  individual  ownership  in  land;  re- 
sult, prosperity,  progress,  order,  and  cleanliness.  The 
German  Mennonite  colonies  in  Russia  have  likewise 
been  flourishing  for  over  a  century,  ever  since  the 
days  of  Catherine  II.,  who  encouraged  them  to  come. 
It  was  purely  owing  to  a  breach  of  faith  on  the  part  of 
the  Russian  government,  namely,  the  refusal  longer  to 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        137 

abide  by  the  pledge  made  by  the  great  Russian  empress 
not  to  exact  military  service  from  them,  that  many  left 
their  old  homesteads  to  emigrate  to  the  United  States 
and  Canada,  But,  of  course,  the  Mennonites,  too, 
were  believers  in  individual  possession  of  their 
acres. 

As  hinted  before,  even  the  Russian  government,  wil- 
fully blind  as  it  has  been  for  so  long,  now  begins  to  see 
the  folly  of  its  ways,  and  is  seriously  considering  the 
abolishment  of  the  Russian  communal  system.  Hints 
of  such  an  intention  were  first  contained  in  M.  de 
Witte's  budget  report  for  1899.  In  it  he  spoke  favour- 
ably of  doing  away  with  the  joint  tax  responsibility  of 
the  rural  communes.  A  beginning  in  this  direction 
has  since  been  made.  The  law  of  1899  limits  joint  tax 
responsibility  and  promises  its  ultimate  abolishment. 
Other  reform  measures,  such  as  the  re-awarding  of 
peasant  holdings  through  the  mir  at  intervals  of  not 
less  than  twelve  years,  etc.,  look  promising.  Such 
matters  as  communal  readjustments  in  land  and  the 
payment  of  proper  remuneration  by  the  commune  for 
improvements  effected,  are  also  touched  upon  in  this 
law.  Altogether,  it  can  be  said  that  this  is  the  first 
serious  reform  measure — though  at  present  only  on  a 
modest  scale  and  made  in  a  halting  way — that  has  been 
brought  about  in  the  rural  conditions  of  Russia  during 
the  past  forty  years.  The  law  marks  at  least  a  ten- 
dency  in  the  right  direction,  and  it  is  probably  acting 
the  part  of  wisdom  to  proceed  slowly,  step  by  step, 


138  Russia 

when  the  object  to  be  benefited  is  a  being  so  ultra- 
conservative  as  is  the  Russian  peasant. 

An  agricultural  commission  has  been  at  work  under 
the  auspices  of  the  imperial  government  and  headed, 
successively,  by  such  able  men  as  Kovalevski  and  Ko- 
kovzeflf,  busy  with  preparing  the  way  for  further  steps 
in  this  direction,  concentrating  their  attention  mainly 
on  that  part  of  the  empire  in  direst  need,  that  is,  the 
Centre,  the  "black-earth  belt."  At  the  conclusion  of 
their  preliminary  labours,  in  1902,  a  new  expert  com- 
mission was  appointed.  This  is  composed  of  min- 
isters and  high  dignitaries,  under  the  chairmanship  of 
the  finance  minister,  and  with  the  right  to  summon  ex- 
perts for  advice.  Unfortunately,  the  choosing  of  this 
commission  was  dictated  by  a  purely  bureaucratic 
spirit,  and  not  much  is  to  be  expected  of  it.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  greatly  to  be  feared  that  the  rural  reform 
spoken  of  has  been  greatly  endangered  by  this  very 
commission.  Not  one  of  its  members  possesses  the 
necessary  qualifications  to  grapple  successfully  with  a 
subject  requiring  a  very  intimate  knowledge  of  rural 
conditions  in  Russia,  differing  as  they  do  so  greatly  in 
different  parts  of  the  empire.  Nevertheless,  the  fact 
that  Witte  himself  has  remained  at  its  head,  even  now 
that  he  has  been  transferred,  nominally  at  least,  to  a 
dijBfereut  sphere  of  the  Russian  public  service,  seems  to 
afford  a  guaranty  that  something  worth  while  will 
ultimately  result  from  all  these  labours. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  assume  that  the  Russian 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        139 

peasant  is  inherently  incapable  of  enterprise.  Cases 
come  under  the  observation  of  every  open-minded  trav- 
eller or  resident  in  Russia  disproving  such  an  assump- 
tion. Of  his  being  a  "handy  man"  proof  was  furnished 
elsewhere.  He  has  in  a  pronounced  degree  mechanical 
talent.  But  under  favouring  circumstances,  though,  it 
must  be  admitted,  only  in  individual  cases,  he  likewise 
shows  initiative  and  mercantile  gift.  It  must  be  re- 
membered, for  one  thing,  that  the  Russian  merchants, 
as  a  class,  are  the  descendants,  one  or  more  generations 
removed,  of  Russian  peasant  serfs.  One  striking  illus- 
tration of  such  individual  peasant  enterprise  as  men- 
tioned above  came  under  the  author's  observation 
years  ago.  At  a  banquet  given  by  the  Russian  minister 
in  Teheran,  Persia,  beer  was  served  which  everybody 
present  admitted  to  be  of  superior  quality.  It  resembled 
closely,  in  fact,  both  in  palatableness  and  appearance, 
the  best  Munich  brand.  Inquiry  revealed  the  fact  that 
it  had  been  sent  in  barrels  from  Astrakhan,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Volga,  down  the  length  of  the  Caspian 
Sea  to  Resht,  the  main  Persian  harbour.  This  beer 
was  sold  throughout  Central  Asia.  The  makers  of  this 
beer  were  the  sons  of  poor  Russian  peasant  serfs,  who 
years  before  had  left  the  paternal  izba  and  drifted  down 
to  Astrakhan.  There,  after  a  while,  they  had  founded 
a  bit  of  a  brewery  on  their  joint  slender  savings,  had 
later  on  obtained  on  contract  a  high-salaried  foreman 
of  a  Munich  brewery,  and  by  diligence  and  enterprise 
had  made  their  establishment  a  complete  success. 


I40  Russia 

Looking  through  the  statistical  data  collected  and 
issued  by  the  zemstva  and  other  rural  authorities,  one 
thing  becomes  apparent.  The  standard  of  life  of  the 
Russian  peasant  is  extremely  low.  In  many  interior 
provinces  (for  it  must  be  remembered  that  conditions  as 
portrayed  here  apply  in  the  main  only  to  the  fifty  pro- 
vinces composing  the  heart  of  Russia,  and  not  so  much 
to  the  twenty-one  border  provinces  towards  the  South, 
the  whole  West,  and  part  of  the  North)  a  large  per- 
centage of  the  village  population,  say  one-fourth  to  one- 
third,  live  in  hovels  in  comparison  with  which  even  the 
crazy  cabins  of  the  poor  cotter  and  crofter  in  the  West 
of  Ireland  or  the  Scotch  Highlands  seem  palace-like. 
In  length  and  breadth  these  hovels  of  the  Russian  peas- 
ant measure  an  average  of  six  arsheens  (four  and  one- 
half  yards),  and  in  height  they  are  only  half  that.  In 
the  one  room  making  up  this  dwelling  the  entire  family 
— averaging  between  seven  and  eight — have  their  be- 
ing, and  it  usually  houses  as  well  the  rough-coated 
horse  (if  there  is  one),  the  cow,  the  pigs,  sheep,  and 
fowls;  though  in  the  majority  of  cases  these  domestic 
animals  are  conspicuous  by  their  absence.  Of  sanitary 
arrangements,  both  within  and  without  the  hou.se, 
there  is,  of  course,  no  trace,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that 
epidemics  of  cholera,  typhus,  diphtheria,  scarlet-fever, 
smallpox,  and  other  contagious  diseases  hold  high 
carnival  under  such  circumstances.  But  of  these  things 
the  world  has  learned  quite  a  deal  of  late  years.  It  is 
more  to  the  purpose  of  this  book  to  speak  of  the  fact 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        141 

that  the  official  statistics  of  the  ministry  of  agriculture 
in  Russia  show  for  the  rural  labourer  an  average  per 
diem  wage  during   the  summer  of  twenty-seven   to 
thirty-six  kopeks  (seven  to  nine  pence,  or  fourteen  to 
eighteen  cents),   that  is,   in  the  "black-earth   belt," 
while  in  the  South-west  as  much  as  forty  to  sixty  ko- 
peks is  paid  (ten  to  fifteen  pence,  or  twenty  to  thirty 
cents).     That  means,  of  course,  the  long  Russian  sum- 
mer day  of  fifteen  to  seventeen  hours.     In  those  dis- 
tricts of  Russia  where  cottage  industry  has  survived — 
creating  a  sort  of  competition  in  the  labour  market 
— wages  run  even  higher,  but  nowhere  do  average  an- 
nual earnings  for  the  rural  labourer  exceed  fifty  roubles 
yearly.     That  is  about  the  maximum,  and  from  that 
there  is  a  sliding  scale  sinking  as  low  as  seventeen  rou- 
bles per  annum,  this  last  figure  applying  to  the  earth- 
workers  and  potters  of  Perm.     At  best  these  earnings 
last  five  or  six  months  in  every  year  and  then  comes  for 
the  great  bulk  of  the  rural  population  the  long  idleness 
of  winter.     The  daily  average  of  earnings  seems  to  be, 
indeed,  spread  over  the  whole  year,  rather  below  than 
above  Mulhall's  eighteen  to  nineteen  kopeks,  at  least 
for  the  men  working  in  the  "  black-earth  belt."     The 
figures  do  not  include  the  additional  earnings  of  the 
Russian  peasant  by  industrial  labour  in  town  nor  those 
of  his  wife   and  children   and  other  members  of  the 
family  by  following  various  pursuits,  such  as  domestic 
industry,  the  raising  of  vegetables,  or  the  work  in  urban 
factories.     The  total  earnings  of  a  Russian   peasant 


142  Russia 

family  must  be  somewhat  higher  than  the  figures  given 
by  Mulhall  and  other  authorities,  for  a  careful  com- 
putation of  the  average  prices  of  foodstuffs  even  in  low- 
priced  Russia  reveals  the  fact  that  it  is  impossible  there 
to  support  a  family  on  the  most  modest  scale  at  a  figure 
less  than  about  forty-five  to  fifty  roubles  per  year. 

Indeed,  the  latest  and  most  reliable  statistics  of  Rus- 
sia show  that  the  average  annual  expenditures  of  a 
peasant  family  amount  to  sixty-three  roubles  twenty 
kopeks,  of  which  twenty  roubles  forty-four  kopeks 
are  for  food.  Still,  accepting  these  figures,  they  show 
a  standard  of  life  very  far  below  that  in  any  other 
country  of  Europe,  not  even  excluding  Turkey. 

As  the  world  knows,  the  vice  of  drunkenness  is  the 
besetting  sin  of  the  Russian  peasant.  It  is  indeed  sur- 
prising how  large  a  part  of  his  total  meagre  earnings 
disappears  in  vodka.  There  is  plenty  of  excuse  for 
him,  of  course.  It  would  require  a  moral  force  far  be- 
yond what  can  be  expected  in  the  circumstances  for 
this  poor  fellow  to  resist  the  temptation  of  the  bottle, 
and  of  the  exhilaration  and  oblivion  which  it  brings. 
But  in  any  case,  this  vice  is  an  additional  curse  to  him, 
viewed  merely  from  an  economic  point.  No  saint's 
day,  no  communal  celebration  of  any  kind,  no  social 
diversion,  without  the  delights  of  the  bottle.  The 
poorest  of  Russian  villages  will  frequently  find  means 
to  indulge  jointly  in  a  veritable  orgy,  when  a  number 
of  gallons  of  this  vile  stuff,  the  Russian  potato  brandy, 
will  be  consumed.     It  is  the  only  joy  in  this  world  the 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        143 

peasant  knows  of.  Economy  lie  has  never  been  taught; 
in  fact,  it  would  be  rather  a  hindrance  than  a  help  to 
him  under  conditions  of  communal  joint  ownership. 

Scanning  the  figures  of  the  official  budget  report  for 
1902,  it  is  remarked  that  the  average  consumption  of 
alcohol  per  head  of  population  had  been  for  the  preced- 
ing ten  years  a  matter  of  only  three-quarters  of  a  gal- 
lon; but  this  means  spirits  measured  solely  according 
to  the  percentage  of  alcohol  they  contain.  In  other 
words,  the  real  consumption  (relying  on  these  figures) 
of  vodka,  beer,  wine,  and  other  liquors  sold  by  govern- 
ment monopoly  is  probably  about  three  or  four^gallons 
per  head.  This,  it  must  be  admitted,  remains  below 
one's  expectations.  But  for  one  thing  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  the  peasant  manufactures  himself  weak 
but  yet  spirituous  liquors,  such  as  qvas  (of  which  great 
quantities  are  consumed),  and  which  escape  the  gov- 
ernment tax.  On  the  other  hand,  the  government 
monopoly  of  the  sale  of  spirits  has  raised  the  price  of 
the  latter  very  greatly.  To  get  an  idea  of  this  it  is  but 
necessary  to  remark  that  the  cost  per  head  to  the  peas- 
ant for  the  liquor  which  he  consumes  means  an  annual 
outlay  of  three  roubles  sixty-five  kopeks  and  that  the 
government  takes  of  this  sum  in  the  form  of  taxes  two 
roubles  twenty-five  kopeks.  Therefore,  while  the 
peasant  spends  over  one-tenth  of  the  total  earnings  of 
himself  and  family  on  liquor,  the  government  makes 
him  pay  for  it  about  130  per  cent,  more  than  it  costs. 
In  a  peasant  family  composed  of  several  adult  male 


144  Russia 

members  the  outlay  on  liquor  is,  of  course,  mucli 
larger,  amounting  to  one-fifth  or  one-fourth  even  of 
the  total  earnings  of  that  family. 

Novikoff's  report,  to  which  repeated  reference  has 
been  made,  describes  graphically  the  utter  desolation 
and  misery  of  the  average  peasant  family.     The  heat- 
ing of  the  izba  is  done  in  the  most  primitive  fashion, 
and  in  such  a  way  that  it  alone  accounts  for  much  of 
the   enormous   mortality,  a   mortality   which  is  only 
equalled  by  the  rapid  increase  of  births.     Reading  his 
pages,  it  seems  indeed  a  miracle  how  one  hundred  mill- 
ions of  human  beings,  living  under  a  form  of  Christ- 
anity  and  a  government  which  prides  itself  on  the  term 
of  ' '  paternal, ' '  can  have  patiently  borne  for  so  many 
years  such  frightful  conditions,   without   a  murmur, 
never  losing  their  trust  either  in  the  Church  (which 
does  absolutely  nothing  to  alleviate  their  sufferings)  or 
in  the  Czar.     The  Russian  peasant  proverb,  ' '  Russia  is 
great,  and  the  Czar  is  far  away,"  sounds  Hke  a  dull  cry 
of  despair.     However,  even  the  Russian  peasant,  sea- 
soned as  he  is  and  inured  to  hardship  and  starvation, 
cannot  escape  the  physical  and  moral  consequences  of 
such  pitiless  and  incessant  conditions.     In  the  ' '  black- 
earth  belt,"  mortality  has  increased  at  a  frightful  rate, 
and  the  population  figure  remains  stationary.     Outside 
that  belt  things  are  far  better,  it  is  true.     There  is  a 
great  scarcity  of  physicians,  of  hospitals,  and  mid  wives. 
In  the  Centre  there  is  one  regular  physician  to  every 
26,740  persons,  and  in  the  outlying  provinces  one  to 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        145 

every  48,800,  the  average  for  the  whole  empire  being 
one  to  every  35,000.  Of  course,  the  peasant  does  not 
rely  on  either  druggist  or  doctor;  he  goes  to  the 
"  Knowing  One,"  that  is,  the  "  wise  woman,"  and  she 
works  her  spells  on  him  and  his  family.  Ignorance  is 
so  dense  that  even  the  most  elementary  laws  of  health 
are  constantly  violated.  The  peasant  women  are 
nearly  all  sufiferers  from  a  complication  of  ills  and  dis- 
eases. During  the  nursing  period  peasant  babies  are 
generally  brought  up  on  the  bottle,  together  with  a 
mush  made  of  rye  bread. 

The  annual  increase  in  population  is,  so  far  as  the 
empire  as  a  whole  is  concerned,  1.38  per  cent.,  but 
for  the  distinctively  Russian  district,  that  is,  Centre, 
South,  South-west,  and  East,  it  is  only  less  than  one- 
fifth  of  this,  namely,  0.26  per  cent.  In  some  of  the 
border  provinces  of  Russia,  particularly  Poland  and  the 
Baltic  provinces,  the  increase  in  population  is  2.2  per 
cent.,  which  is  more  than  eight  times  the  increase  in  the 
Centre. 

It  is  not  astonishing  that  the  Russian  peasantry  in 
the  ' '  black-earth  belt ' '  of  late  are  emigrating  both  to 
Siberia  and  to  the  border  provinces.  By  tens  of  thou- 
sands they  annually  leave  their  villages  to  settle  on 
virgin  land  in  Western  Siberia.  And  yet  the  provinces 
they  leave  were  endowed  by  nature  with  extremely  fer- 
tile soil,  and  the  density  of  population  even  in  these 
central  provinces  is  to-day  less  than  half  that  of  Ger- 
many, and  below  one-sixth  that  of  Belgium.     But  the 


146  Russia 

peasant  in  the  Centre  is  steadily  degenerating.  The 
annual  recruiting  for  the  army  shows  that  plainly. 
The  number  of  men  found  unfit  for  military  service  is 
large  and  constantly  increasing.  Both  in  deficient 
width  of  chest  and  in  lesser  height  he  forms  a  striking 
contrast  with  the  Russian  living  under  more  propitious 
conditions. 

Devastations  by  fire  are  another  curse  of  the  Russian 
peasant.  The  villages  are  very  populous.  Some  of 
them  have  as  many  as  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  in- 
habitants, and  the  average  is  somewhere  between  two 
and  three  thousand.  Buildings  stand  close  together, 
and  very  few  of  them  are  made  of  anything  more  dur- 
able than  wood  and  a  straw  thatch.  It  is  not  surpris- 
ing, therefore,  that  the  annual  ravages  by  fire  must  be 
reckoned  by  hundreds  of  millions,  and  this  despite  the 
cheapness  of  the  material.  Insurance  there  is  none. 
Of  the  large  number  of  holidays  mention  was  made 
before.  These  enforced  days  of  idleness  have  encour- 
asred  the  natural  slothfuluess  and  indolence  of  the 
peasant  population.  On  holidays  the  peasant  even 
during  critical  harvest  times  will  prefer  to  see  his  crop 
destroyed  by  a  sudden  shower,  a  severe  thunder-storm, 
or  hail,  rather  than  violate  the  behests  of  the  Church 
and  State  by  turning  to  and  saving  what  he  has  toiled 
for  so  patiently. 

The  Russian  of  every  degree  is  subject  to  sudden  and 
prolonged  "sprees" ;  the  Russian  word  for  that  is  sapoi. 
A  man,  usually  diligent  and  sober,  will  without  warn- 


Agriculture  and  Peasantry        147 

ing  devote  himself  for  the  space  of  days  or  weeks  ex- 
clusively to  hard  drinking,  then  returning  to  his  usual 
work.  This  is  an  irresistible  physical  craving  with 
him. 

Can  we  wonder  if  the  noted  Russian  traveller  in 
Africa,  Junker,  in  his  writings  compares  the  situation 
of  the  negro  in  the  Eastern  Soudan  with  that  of  the 
Russian  peasant,  very  much  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
latter  ? 

The  Russian  climate,  too,  is  changing  for  the  worse, 
and  that  again  is  partially  responsible  for  the  more  and 
more  frequent  recurrence  of  deficient  crops  and  famines. 
With  denser  population  throughout  the  central  portions 
and  with  the  change  of  cultivation  largely  to  cereal  pro- 
duction, have  gone  hand  in  hand  the  destruction  of 
the  forests  and  the  disappearance  of  the  grassy  steppes. 
The  effect  has  been  a  twofold  one:  It  has  robbed  the 
climate  of  much  of  its  moisture  and  regular  rains,  thus 
producing  frequent  drouths,  and  it  has  deprived  the 
rivers  and  springs  of  much  of  their  regular  sources  of 
nourishment.  This  factor,  though  it  has  escaped  the 
attention  of  the  Russian  government  and  even  of  the 
majority  of  Russian  economical  writers,  can  scarcely  be 
overestimated.  As  in  the  United  States  (where  its 
workings  are  being  felt  in  large  agricultural  districts), 
this  factor  is  a  permanent  one  for  Russia,  and  with 
greater  administrative  wisdom  and  less  of  wastefulness, 
it  will  require  at  best  many  years  to  offset  the  climatic 
and  productive  disadvantages  carelessly  brought  on. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  FAMOUS  BIvACK-EARTH  BELT 

Its  Importance  to  the  Nation — Witli  it  Russia  Stands  or  Falls 
— General  Recognition  of  this  Fact  by  Russian  Thinkers — 
This  District  Comprises  Two-thirds  of  European  Russia  in 
Territory  and  One-half  in  Population — From  the  Most 
Fertile  in  the  Whole  of  Europe  it  Has  Sunk  to  a  Land 
Agriculturally  Exhausted — Taxes  Cannot  be  Collected  and 
Frequent  Famines  there  Require  Constant  Government 
Aid— The  Whole  of  this  Belt  Labours  for  Export  of  Wheat 
and  Rye— The  Province  of  Samara  Furnishes  a  Striking 
Instance  of  Steadily  Proceeding  Exhaustion  of  the  Soil- 
Some  Facts  and  Figures— Causes  for  this  Apparently  Per- 
manent Decline- What  Novikoflf,  a  High  Government 
Official,  Has  to  Say  on  the  Subject— Apathy  and  Blind 
Obedience  the  Ruling  Traits  of  the  Peasantry — The  Shark- 
like R61e  of  the  Orthodox  Church— Is  Russia  Shifting 
her  Centre? — Government  Investigations  and  their  Futil- 
ity—The "Black-Earth  Belt"  within  the  Last  Decade  Has 
Agriculturally  Remained  behind  Half  a  Billion  of  Roubles 
— A  Notable  Cry  of  Pain  in  the  Grashdanin — What  Will  be 
the  Result  of  Another  Polish  Revolution  in  Russia  ? 

OCCASIONAIy  reference  has  been  made  through- 
out preceding  chapters  to  Russia's  famous 
"  black-earth  belt,"  but  the  subject  is  one  of  such  vast 
importance  and  is  so  intimately  connected  with  the 
causes  that  have  led  to  her  agricultural  decline,  as  well 
as  to  the  physical,  economical,  and  moral  degeneracy  of 

148 


The  Famous  Black-Earth  Belt     149 

her  peasant  population,  that  it  is  deemed  advisable  to 
devote  a  special  chapter  to  the  subject. 

In  a  country  so  vast,  presenting  such  enormous  dif- 
ferences in  climatic  and  orographic  conditions,  there 
must  of  necessity  be  great  diflferentiation  in  the  eco- 
nomic situation  of  the  population.  In  fact,  despite  the 
crass  uniformity  of  the  political  system,  what  is  true 
of  certain  parts  of  the  Russian  Empire  applies  by  no 
means  to  every  part  of  it.  The  contention  is  not  made 
in  this  book  that  such  frightful  conditions  as  are  seen 
in  the  Centre  and  portions  of  the  Hast  and  South-east, 
prevail  through  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the 
country.  There  are  large  districts  in  Russia  which  en- 
joy relative  or  absolute  prosperity  and  which  are  free 
wholly  or  in  part  from  the  awful  economic  and  moral 
curses  which  the  world  has  come  to  connect  with  the 
name  of  Russia. 

Those  portions,  for  instance,  which  are  known,  re- 
spectively, as  Little  Russia  and  New  Russia  are  very 
different  from  the  Centre.  They  suffer  much  less  from 
communal  joint  ownership;  there  the  constriction  due 
to  that  system  has  been  largely  discarded,  if  not  legally 
at  least  by  actual  practice.  In  Little  Russia  joint  tax 
responsibility  of  the  commune  has  never  existed,  and 
does  not  exist  to-day;  this  is  owing  to  the  different  his- 
torical development  of  those  portions  of  the  empire,  an- 
nexed by  Russia  at  a  comparatively  recent  time.  A 
very  large  German  immigration  has  there  contributed 
to  healthier  conditions  of  agriculture.     The  average 


I50  Russia 

well-being  is  there  far  greater  than  in  the  Centre,  and 
occasional  failures  in  the  crop  have  not  even  approxi- 
mately such  deleterious  effects.  They  are  border  dis- 
tricts, and  the  traffic  with  adjoining  western  countries 
has  had  a  beneficial  result.  There  are,  besides  (leav- 
ing out  of  consideration  the  border  provinces),  other 
portions  of  Russia  proper  economically  more  advanced 
and  prosperous  than  the  central  portions.  Bessarabia 
and  Podolia,  the  Crimea  and  the  Tauridis  are  among 
these,  and  sections  of  Western  Siberia  are  also  in  a 
promising  condition.  Central  Asia  under  Russian 
sway  has  made  decided  economic  progress.  Taking 
these  facts  in  their  entirety,  it  would  seem  as  if  Rus- 
sia's case,  agriculturally  considered,  were  by  no  means 
desperate. 

However,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  ' '  black- 
earth  belt "  is  the  very  heart  of  Russia;  when  the  heart 
is  unsound,  how  can  the  body  be  well  and  strong? 
The  "  black-earth  belt"  is  the  Russian  fastness,  politi- 
cally, economically,  and  morally.  Its  life,  be  it  high 
or  low,  must  in  the  nature  of  things  determine  and 
shape  in  the  main  the  life  of  the  nation.  Were  the 
core  once  irretrievably  rotten  and  impoverished,  Russia 
could  not  hope  to  rise  again  to  affluence  and  health. 
Almost  without  exception  Russian  thinkers  are  recog- 
nising this  fact.  The  government,  culpably  blind  as  it 
has  been  for  several  generations,  has  at  last  waked  to 
the  truth.  It  is,  therefore,  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
show  actual  conditions  in  this  "  black-earth  belt." 


The  Famous  Black-Earth  Belt     151 

By  the  "  black-earth  belt  "  is  meant  three  regions  of 
European   Russia.     The  first  of  these,   the  so-called 
Centre,  comprises  a  territory  of  about  170,000  square 
miles  with  fourteen  and  one-half  million  inhabitants. 
To  the  east  of  this  lie  the  Volga  lowlands,  in  point  of 
culture,  racial  characteristics,   and   general  economic 
conditions    differing    but    slightly    from    the    Centre. 
Together  these  two  territories  form  a  complex  about 
460,000  square  miles  in  size,  with  twenty-five  and  one- 
half  millions  of  population.     To  the  south  extends  the 
large  stretch  of  New  Russia,  and  to  the  south-west  Little 
Russia.      Both  differ  from  the  Centre  in  several  re- 
spects.    They,  too,  are  peopled  by  the  Great  Russian 
race,  and  though  Little  Russia  speaks  a  dialect  of  its 
own  and  has  a  separate  literature  scarcely  inferior  in 
quality  and  peculiar  charm  to  that  of  Russia  proper, 
still,  in  character  and  ideals  the  distinction  is  not  very 
marked.     Together  these  last-named  territories  com- 
prise some  165,000  square  miles,  with  a  population  of 
nineteen  and  one-half  millions.     To  the  north-east  lie 
separate  tracts  which  likewise  belong  to  the  "  black- 
earth  belt"  and  which  show  conditions  assimilating 
those  of  the  Centre.     But  these  latter  are  not  of  sufl5- 
cient   importance   to   be    grouped    under    our    head. 
Roughly  speaking,  therefore,   we  have  here   to  deal 
with  a  district  of  about  625,000  square  miles  and  some 
forty-five  million  inhabitants,  in  point  of  population 
nearly  two-fifths  of  the  whole,  and  forming  the  domi- 
nant factor  in  Russia's  policies,  internal  and  external. 


152  Russia 

This  "  black-earth  belt "  was  once — and  not  so  long 
ago — the  most  fertile  perhaps  in  the  whole  of  Europe. 
In  the  North  and  East  it  is  slightly  hilly,  and  in  the 
South  and  South-west  it  is  a  flat,  treeless  steppe.  The 
deposit  of  rich,  black,  loamy  soil  is  of  considerable 
thickness  and  compares  favourably  with  the  finest 
prairie  land  in  the  United  States  and  Canada,  and  with 
the  bottom  lands  along  the  L,ower  Mississippi.  It 
ought  to  be  (and  in  a  certain  sense  still  is)  the  great 
cereal  belt  of  Europe.  By  rights  it  ought  to  yield  not 
only  abundant  nourishment  to  its  native  population, 
but  millions  upon  millions  of  tons  for  export.  Nature 
has  acted  wisely  enough  in  making  this  district  the 
nucleus  of  Russia's  greatness;  it  ought  to  be  the  heart 
supplying  rich  blood  to  the  arteries  of  the  empire.  Man 
has  made  of  it  a  festering  sore. 

All  expert  reports  agree  in  one  thing:  the  soil  of 
the  "black-earth  belt"  shows  serious  signs  of  ex- 
haustion. In  varying  degree  the  valuable  chemical 
properties  of  the  earth  have  diminished.  Crop  fail- 
ures, wholly  or  in  part,  appear  to  be  the  direct 
outcome  of  this  exhaustion.  Lokhtin  claims  this. 
Nearly  every  other  authority,  in  scientific  works  or 
in  the  reports  made  to  the  central  government  or 
the  zemstva  (provincial  chambers),  agrees  with  him. 
Among  those  who  have  demonstrated  this  clearly  are 
such  Russian  authorities  as  Golovine,  Schwanebach, 
NovikoflF,  Issayeff,  Simkovitch,  Keussler,  Yermolofi", 
Engelmann,   Milukofi",   and  others.     Government  ex- 


The  Famous  Black-Earth  Belt     153 

perts,  sent  to  investigate  the  phenomenon  of  the  recur- 
rence of  deficient  crops  and  famines  in  this  once  most 
fertile  region  of  Russia,  reported  in  a  similar  sense. 
The  finance  minister,  M.  de  Witte,  alone  opposes  this 
unanimous  opinion,  possibly  for  reasons  of  his  own. 
He  lays  the  blame  for  the  famines  which  have  become 
a  regular  institution  in  Central  Russia  on  unfavourable 
weather,  drouth,  rain,  or  frost,  and  he  does  not  say  a 
word  in  his  two  budget  reports  of  1898  and  1899  about 
the  causes  leading  to  such  meteorological  conditions, 
although  these  causes  are  precisely  the  main  thing,  and 
the  weather  which  they  occasion  but  their  inevitable 
consequence.  Witte' s  statements  and  explanations  in 
this  matter  would  be  indeed  laughable  were  the  subject 
not  such  a  serious  one.  The  veriest  tyro  in  agriculture 
cannot  fail  to  appreciate  these  causes.  For  centuries 
the  Russian  noble  and  peasant  have  been  doing  preda- 
tory farming.  The  soil  has  never  received  any  manure. 
The  layer  of  rich  humus,  inexhaustible  as  it  seemed, 
has  gradually  lost  its  fertile  qualities.  Since  the 
emancipation  of  the  serfs  the  one-crop  system  has  been 
followed.  Wheat,  wheat,  nothing  but  wheat.  To-day, 
the  traveller  rushing  on  the  wings  of  steam  from  St. 
Petersburg  through  the  vast  plain  on  to  Odessa,  to  the 
shores  of  the  Black  Sea,  sees  nothing  but  one  immense 
waving  wheatfield  stretching  endlessly  along  both  sides 
of  the  railroad.  Back  of  him  the  horizon  is  marked  by 
a  dim  line  trembling  in  the  wind,  and  before  him  an- 
other such  trembling  line,  as  far  as  eye  can  reach. 


154  Russia 

Wheat,  wheat,  nothing  but  wheat.  It  is  the  one-crop 
system.  Witte  has  forced  the  Russian  peasant  and 
noble  to  adhere  to  this  system,  suicidal  as  it  is  in  the 
long  run. 

The  facts  are  stronger  than  any  official  misrepresenta- 
tion by  Witte.  For  the  crop  failure  of  1897  there  were 
plenty  of  official  data,  clearly  attributing  that  mis- 
fortune to  soil  exhaustion . 

Here  is  a  striking  illustration.  The  Moscow  Vyedo- 
mosti  in  1898  contained  a  full  report,  based  entirely 
upon  official  sources,  of  the  rapidly  proceeding  exhaus- 
tion of  the  soil  in  the  huge  Volga  district,  a  couple  of 
decades  before  in  a  virgin  state,  and  now,  under  the 
pitilessly  pursued  robber  system  of  the  Russian  farmer, 
already  deficient  in  nutritive  elements.  This  report 
gave  figures  which  tell  the  story  plainly.  For  the  large 
province  of  Samara  (belonging  to  this  Volga  district) 
the  figures  of  1883  to  1892,  when  compared  with  those 
considered  normal  a  decade  before,  show  yields  as 
follows : 

Average  normal  yield  for  the  preceding  decade: 
Winter  wheat,  31  pood  per  dessyatine,  against  27.6  for 
1883-1892;  34.7  for  spring  wheat,  against  25.5;  41.7 
for  rye,  against  30.4;  33.8  for  oats,  against  26.5;  33.5 
for  barley,  against  18.7;  301.9  for  potatoes  against  213.6. 

This,  then,  shows  an  average  falling  off  in  the  yield  of 
the  main  cereals  (potatoes  included)  of  about  thirty  per 
cent. ,  in  some  cases  (such  as  barley  and  spring  wheat) 
even  more;  and  all  this  within  the  space  of  just  ten 


The  Famous  Black-Earth  Belt     155 

years.  Truly,  Witte  is  convicted  of  misrepresentation 
out  of  the  mouths  of  his  own  officials.  The  same  de- 
ductions can  be  made  from  similar  comparative  figures 
in  the  adjoining  provinces  along  the  Volga  bottoms, 
and  due  to  precisely  the  same  causes  of  unwise  agricul- 
ture. Under  these  circumstances  it  is  also  quite  evident 
that  government  fifaancial  aid  to  the  starving  in  years 
of  wide-spread  famine  can  only  be  a  makeshift,  a  pallia- 
tive of  temporary  effect.  With  such  aid  the  roots  of  the 
evil  are  not  touched.  The  world  must  expect  to  meet 
the  fact  of  a  starving  Russia  at  frequent  intervals,  so 
long  as  no  efiFort  is  made  in  a  thorough  and  methodical 
way  of  eliminating  the  evil  itself,  that  is,  the  exhaus- 
tion of  this  once  immensely  fertile  belt.  Of  course,  the 
climatic  changes  due  to  the  wholesale  devastation  of 
forests  (brought  about  by  the  lack  of  other  fuel  for  the 
industrial  establishments  in  rural  districts  and  by  the 
rising  prices  for  timber),  and  the  disappearance  of 
the  steppe  in  European  Russia,  also  play  a  large  part  in 
the  regularly  recurring  deficiency  of  crops. 

This  very  district  along  the  Volga,  settled  as  a  whole 
only  since  a  generation  or  two,  and  originally  of  un- 
paralleled fertility,  was  the  main  seat  of  the  pitiless 
famine  of  1901.  Its  area  of  three  hundred  thousand 
square  miles  and  eleven  million  population  was  at  that 
time  one  vast  poorhouse,  such  as  S.  Kovalevski  (a  high 
government  official)  described  it  in  his  great  work 
(written  in  French  and  published  in  Paris),  and  as  the 
two  authors  of  Starving  Russia,  L,ehmann  and  Parvus, 


15^  Russia 

painted  it  on  the  strength  of  personal  investigation  ex- 
tending over  the  whole  territory  in  question.  Condi- 
tions were  found  which  have  scarcely  ever  been  equalled 
in  horror  even  in  India  during  periods  of  excessive 
famine.  Whole  villages  of  five  thousand  population 
and  over  were  found  with  everybody  hidden  away  in 
hovels,  lying  prone  on  the  bare  clay  floor,  in  utter  de- 
stitution, men,  women,  and  children  in  the  throes  of 
starvation;  village  upon  village  where  even  rats  and 
mice  had  disappeared  because  of  lack  of  food,  and 
where  cats  and  dogs  had  starved  to  death  along  with 
their  human  masters.  In  many  of  these  villages 
throughout  the  long  winter  the  inhabitants  had  made 
systematic  attempts  to  cease  from  eating  and  drinking 
by  imitating  the  hibernating  slumber  of  the  bear,  lying 
in  a  stupor  on  their  miserable  couches,  moving  as 
little  as  possible,  and  dozing  days  and  nights,  in  order 
to  reduce  to  a  minimum  the  vital  functions. 

The  purely  agricultural  provinces  of  the  Centre  and 
East  during  the  last  ten  years  have,  generally  speak- 
ing, regularly  approximated  at  intervals  such  frightful 
conditions. 

How  are  the  peasantry  in  Russia  to  prosper  against 
such  an  endless  chain  of  adversities  ?  The  Russian 
peasant  has  never  been  taught  to  work  properly.  He 
labours  in  a  half-hearted  way,  lacks  steadiness  and  per- 
sistence; he  does  not  like  to  work  for  several  days  in 
succession,  and  never  has  ideas  or  purposes  taking  into 
account  conditions  weeks  or  months  hence.     The  fre- 


The  Famous  Black-Earth  Belt     i57 

quency  of  Russian  holidays  has  bred  him  to  this  un- 
profitable manner  of  toiling,  and  his  natural  indolence 
has  also  something  to  do  with  it.  His  labour  is  super- 
ficial, never  thorough,  and  agriculture  is  precisely  a 
form  of  employment  which  will  not  tolerate  this. 
Thoroughness  indeed,  and  indefatigable  labour  at  criti- 
cal periods  of  the  year,  are  chief  requisites  in  a  suc- 
cessful tiller  of  the  soil.  These  same  deficiencies  of 
character  are  marked  in  the  Russian  noble,  just  as  they 
are  in  the  whole  nation.  The  richest  cereal  lands  of 
Europe  have  unfortunately  been  confided  to  the  hands 
of  a  nation  less  gifted  for  agriculture  than  almost  any 
other  in  Europe.  Thus  it  is,  too,  that  the  productive- 
ness of  agriculture,  considered  acre  per  acre,  is  less  in 
Russia  than  in  all  countries  to  the  west.  And  all  this 
has  a  demoralising  effect;  it  emasculates  the  people. 
The  Russian  is  not  made  to  progress  individually,  a 
fact  which  nobody  better  than  his  own  government  has 
recognised  for  centuries.  He  must  be  driven  and 
pushed.  Witte  stated  this  in  bald  terms  in  a  memorial, 
since  often  quoted,  to  the  present  Czar,  Nicholas  II. 
The  Russian  moves  en  masse,  not  as  an  individual;  he 
is  best  in  the  artel  (co-operative  association),  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  volost  (the  commune),  working  at  the  bidding 
of  the  authorities. 

A  part  of  Novikofifs  illuminating  report  about  Rus- 
sian rural  conditions  (and  heretofore  referred  to)  gives 
a  clear  insight  into  this  feature  of  Russian  life.  In  it 
he  says: 


158  Russia 

The  general  complaints  about  the  lack  of  order  and  cleanli- 
ness in  our  villages,  the  poverty  of  the  peasant,  his  savagery, 
the  poor  quality  of  the  village  authorities  and  those  of  the 
volost,  the  doings  of  the  kulak — all  this  has  the  same  root :  It 
is  the  habit  of  external  compulsion,  to  which  the  peasant  has 
been  inured  for  centuries  past,  and  which  has  deprived  him  of 
every  trace  of  initiative  and  individual  enterprise. 

Formerly  it  was  the  passive,  unquestioning  obedience 
to  the  master  who  owned  body  and  soul;  now  it  is  the 
same  kind  of  obedience  to  the  policeman,  the  zemski 
natchalnik  (influential  oflScial  controlling  peasant  affairs 
in  each  province),  etc.,  and  finally  the  same  kind  of 
obedience  shown  towards  the  volost  and  the  village  au- 
thorities, but  never  a  personal  will  of  his  own.  This 
enervates  the  character  of  the  masses,  as  it  also  incites 
the  exceptional  men  among  them,  the  kulaks,  to  abuse 
their  strength  in  dealing  with  such  a  mollusc-like  mass. 
This  passive  obedience  has  made  a  good  soldier  of  the 
Russian  peasant,  the  kind  of  soldier  we  know:  blindly 
obedient,  freezing  to  death  on  the  Shipka  Pass,  because 
he  has  been  put  there  as  a  sentinel  and  forgotten  by  his 
superior  officers;  he  must  be  killed,  man  by  man,  in 
battle,  because,  even  if  beaten,  he  does  not  easily  retire 
or  run  away,  so  long  as  the  order  has  not  been  given. 

But  the  same  qualities  which  are  virtues  in  a  soldier 
are  grave  defects  in  a  free  labourer,  at  least  if  these  vir- 
tues are  part  and  parcel  of  his  individual  character. 
The  lack  of  self-dependence  is  a  leading  Russian  trait, 
and  even  assuming  that  there  was  a  time  when  it  was 
not,  historical  development  has  deeply  ingrained  it  in 


The  Famous  Black- Earth  Belt     159 

the  Russian  soul.  And  this  historical  development, 
this  education  to  indolence  and  want  of  will-power  by 
means  of  subjection  and  a  poor  system  of  government, 
is  still  going  on.  Even  to-day,  Church  and  State  are 
of  opinion  that  it  is  far  better  to  remind  the  peasant  of 
the  sacredness  of  the  Church  and  of  the  authority  of 
the  State  by  increasing  his  holidays,  than  to  inure  him 
to  hard  and  steady  work  by  decreasing  the  number  of 
these  holidays  and  by  encouraging  sobriety  in  keeping 
him  away  from  the  governmental  vodka  monopoly 
shop.  Indeed,  far  more  than  the  nobleman,  his  whilom 
master,  ever  did,  Russian  bureaucracy  of  to-day  extin- 
guishes every  spark  of  manhood  in  the  Russian  peasant. 
An  exhausted  soil,  an  enfeebled  bod}',  a  labouring 
capacity  weakened  by  State  and  Church  regulations,  a 
spiritual  and  material  civilisation  which  has  remained 
stagnant  for  five  hundred  years — these  are  given  facts 
which  make  competition  with  other  countries  extremely 
hard,  almost  impossible,  for  Russian  agriculture.  And 
on  the  part  of  the  State,  as  we  have  seen,  nothing  is 
done  to  strengthen  this  deficient  productivity;  rather 
the  contrary.  The  increasing  number  of  holidays 
means  an  enormous  loss  to  the  country  in  the  case  of  a 
people  numbering  one  hundred  and  thirty  millions.  To 
express  this  loss  in  figures  is  almost  an  impossibility  in 
a  country  where  governmental  statistics  are  so  defective 
and  irregular,  as  well  as  slow,  as  is  the  case  in  Russia. 
As  to  the  latter  point  the  fact  speaks  volumes  that  seven 
years  have  gone  since  the  last  national  census,  and  only 


i6o  Russia 

a  small  portion  of  its  facts  and  figures  have  up  to  now 
become  available.  But  taking  the  lowest  estimates 
made  by  Russian  statisticians,  the  economic  loss  to  the 
nation  owing  to  the  average  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
holidays  in  the  year  for  the  Russian  peasant,  must  be 
fully  four  hundred  million  roubles  per  year.  This  is 
only  the  direct  money  loss,  whereas  the  indirect  losses 
in  material  and  moral  forces  are  much  greater,  but  even 
this  money  loss  plays  a  great  figure  in  a  country  whose 
financial  system  is  of  such  a  peculiar  nature,  compelling 
greatly  excessive  export. 

The  policy  of  the  Russian  government  has  been,  and 
still  is,  to  introduce  additional  holidays  even  in  those 
parts  of  the  Empire  where  the  Orthodox  Church  is  in  a 
small  minority,  such  as  Roman  Catholic  Poland,  Pro- 
testant Baltic  German  provinces,  and  so  forth.  There, 
too,  the  people  are  now  obliged  (under  Pobyedonost- 
sefi"'s  zealous  proselytising  system)  to  observe  many 
more  holida5'S,  all  of  them  taken  from  the  calendar 
of  the  Orthodox  Church.  It  is  the  old  short-sighted 
policy  of  the  Russian  government.  Formal  religious 
observances  must  be  promoted  by  all  means,  and  inci- 
dentally the  peasant  must  be  made  to  consume  as 
much  as  possible  of  the  government  monopoly  vodka, 
yielding  a  large  revenue  to  the  state  treasury. 

In  addition  to  this  there  is  the  ever-hungry  maw  of 
the  Church,  Its  recognised  policy  in  this  respect  is  to 
encourage  the  peasant  in  making  voluntary  gifts  to 
pope,  diakon,  and  for  church  building  or  preserving 


The  Famous  Black-Earth  Belt     i6i 

purposes.  A  realistic  sketch  appearing  some  time  ago 
in  a  journal  printed  in  Perm  describes  this  to  the  life. 
The  scene  is  laid  in  the  village  of  Voskressenskoie,  a 
large  and  populous  one,  and  on  the  appointed  day  pope 
and  diakon  receive  their  peasant  guests,  about  a  thou- 
sand of  them.  Batooshka  (I^ittle  Father)  receives  them 
smilingly.  He  is  prepared  for  them,  having  laid  in 
casks  and  bottles  holding  about  eighty  gallons  of 
vodka.  His  guests  appear  with  huge  bundles  of  gifts 
— bread,  flour,  fuel,  tea,  sugar,  preserves,  dried  fruit, 
honey,  hides,  mead,  fruit  brandy,  self-woven  linen,  and 
embroideries.  Waggonloads  of  timber,  kindling  wood, 
wheat,  and  ryo.  are  left  at  his  door.  The  peasants  are 
encouraged  by  their  affable  shepherd  to  drink,  and  they 
fully  avail  themselves  of  the  opportunities.  With 
every  new  glassful  the  guests  become  more  liberal,  and 
when  they  leave,  reeling  on  their  way  homeward,  not 
a  kopek  is  left  in  their  pockets.  The  '  *  shepherd  ' '  has 
fleeced  his  flock,  and  he  feels  correspondingly  happy; 
on  the  day  after  his  flock  does  not  feel  quite  the  same 
way.  It  is  stated  in  this  same  paper  that  in  these 
drunken  revels  at  the  pope's  house  the  peasants  often 
quarrel,  and  that  on  their  way  home  many  a  murder 
has  been  committed.     Truly,  a  delectable  picture. 

That  famines  in  this  "black-earth  belt"  have  be- 
come frequently  recurring  disasters  there  is  no  longer 
any  denial.  Experience  teaches  it,  even  if  opinion  as 
to  the  causes  differs.  lyokhtin  counts  seven  famine 
years   between    1885- 1899.      Schwanebach    only   five 


1 62  Russia 

within  1888-1901,  that  is,  famines  so  bad  that  the 
government  had  to  remit  taxes  on  a  large  scale  and 
keep  by  financial  aid  the  population  of  this  once  fertile 
district  from  actual  starvation.  The  famine  of  1901 
was  particularly  severe,  as  it  hit  the  very  districts 
which  had  greatly  suffered  by  previous  crop  failures, 
those  in  the  Central  and  Eastern  provinces,  though  it 
also  touched  provinces  previously  not  affected.  Twentj'-- 
two  provinces  of  the  ' '  black-earth  belt ' '  suffered 
among  the  worst.  Seventeen  provinces  and  several 
districts  of  Western  Siberia  received  government  aid. 
That  year  the  South-western  provinces  were  likewise 
affected  to  some  extent,  a  proof  that  the  soil  there,  too, 
is  becoming  exhausted.  But  general  conditions  in 
these  latter  provinces  are  still  far  superior  to  those  of 
the  Centre,  and  misery  there  was  neither  so  great  nor 
so  lasting.  There  are  reserve  capital  and  reserve  bread- 
stuffs  in  the  South-west  provinces,  and  peasant  holdings 
average  much  higher  in  size  than  in  the  Centre. 

Ofl&cial  investigations  have  been  made  again  and 
again  as  to  the  cause  of  these  famines.  Unfortunately, 
with  scarcely  any  exception,  the  investigators  started 
out  with  preconceived  opinions,  with  a  bias  so  strong  in 
favour  of  theories  known  to  be  palatable  in  St.  Peters- 
burg as  to  overcome  the  mass  of  tangible  facts  elicited. 
Facts  which  did  not  tally  with  these  preconceived 
opinions  were  simply  ignored  or  distorted,  and  the 
natural  consequence  was  that  the  conclusions  arrived 
at  and  expressed  in  these  official  reports  by  no  means 


The  Famous  Black-Earth  Belt     163 

harmonise  with  the  data.  Yet,  even  among  this  mass 
of  practically  misleading  facts,  there  is  a  goodly  propor- 
tion fully  bearing  out  what  has  been  stated  heretofore 
in  this  chapter.  The  fact  itself  of  the  thorough  im- 
poverishment of  the  "black-earth  belt"  is  admitted 
without  equivocation.  Three  main  causes  for  it  are 
cited:  The  lack  of  all  earnings  save  by  agricultural 
labour;  the  enforced  idleness  during  one-half  of  the 
year,  and  the  excessive  rate  of  taxation,  taking  away 
from  this  district  much  more  in  taxes  than  given  back 
by  the  state  in  one  form  or  another.  This  last  point  is 
undeniable.  In  the  Central  district  an  annual  average 
of  106.4  million  roubles  is  taken  from  the  peasantry  in 
taxes,  and  only  42.8  millions  is  returned  in  improve- 
ments, etc.  For  the  East  the  taxes  were  80  millions, 
and  the  returns  59.2  millions.  But  in  the  South  we 
find  similar  figures,  namely,  122.6  millions  taken  out, 
and  only  64.8  millions  returned.  The  rate  is  similar  in 
other  districts  of  European  Russia.  I^argely  this  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  Asiatic  Russia  swallows  up  an  undue 
proportion  of  the  national  revenue.  And  the  special 
argument  of  the  government  based  on  these  figures  is 
therefore  hardly  anything  better  than  a  fallacy.  The 
reports  throughout  show  a  tendency  towards  mere  me- 
chanical remedies,  giving  a  wide  berth  to  the  roots  of 
the  evil:  The  unwise  system  of  agriculture,  the  joint 
ownership  in  land  practised  by  the  rural  communities, 
and  the  total  lack  of  initiative  and  self-help  on  the  part 
of  the  peasant  population. 


164  Russia 

The  subject  of  tax  arrears  was  briefly  referred  to  be- 
fore. This  has  been  a  standing  item  in  the  Russian 
budget  for  many  years.  Of  course,  the  delinquents  be- 
long almost  entirely  to  the  peasant  class.  The  latest 
available  statistics  demonstrate  an  increase  in  these  ar- 
rears. The  arrears  in  the  redemption  tax  of  the  former 
serf  class  amounted  on  January  2,  1901,  to  250  million 
roubles,  about  seventy  per  cent,  of  which  fell  to  the 
share  of  the  Centre  and  Bast.  Precisely  these  districts 
had  been  assisted  by  the  government  with  financial 
aid  during  the  famine  years  of  1891-1892  with  162 
millions;  1898,  with  35  millions;  1901,  with  10 
millions;  together,  with  207  millions.  Adding  these 
207  millions  to  the  250  millions  arrears  in  the  redemp- 
tion tax  and  the  116  millions  of  other  tax  arrears,  we 
arrive  at  a  total  of  573  millions  which  these  districts, 
the  "  black-earth  belt,"  have  cost  the  government  dur- 
ing the  space  of  one  single  decade  in  tax  deficiencies 
and  in  direct  money  aid.  These  figures,  few  as  they 
are,  speak  volumes  for  the  general  state  of  destitution 
prevailing  there. 

It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  assume  that  only 
the  Centre  and  East  are  affected  in  this  way.  Even  the 
South,  particularly  New  Russia  and  Bessarabia,  despite 
fertile  soil,  mild  climate,  and  sparse  population,  have 
seen  crop  failures  during  the  last  few  years  so  severe  as 
to  have  shaken  to  its  very  base  the  prosperity  of  the 
peasant  element.  There,  too,  both  cattle  and  horses 
have  decreased,  and  there  are  thousands  of  holdings  to- 


The  Famous  Black- Earth  Belt    165 

day  without  a  single  head  of  cattle  or  horses,  demon- 
strating that  these  luckless  peasant  proprietors  have 
had  to  turn  for  help  to  government  or  provincial  au- 
thorities, and  in  most  cases  they  have  had  to  leave 
cultivation  of  their  acres  to  the  enterprising  kulak. 

A  summary  of  general  agrarian  conditions  in  Russia 
is  contained  in  the  report  which  Golovine,  a  noted  na- 
tional economist  and  a  member  of  the  Kovalevski  com- 
mission before  referred  to,  made  to  the  government. 
He  says: 

The  brilliant  fa9ade  of  our  economic  situation  is,  therefore, 
hiding  a  very  meau-looking  backyard.  On  the  one  hand  we 
see  undoubted  signs  of  development :  the  rapid  growth  of  state 
revenues,  the  vivifying  of  our  industry,  the  enlargement  of  our 
network  of  railroads,  the  steady  if  slow  increase  of  railroad  re- 
ceipts in  spite  of  the  lowering  of  passenger  tariffs,  and  lastly, 
our  increasing  exports.  On  the  other  hand,  we  see  the  decrease 
of  harvests  in  the  centre  of  the  country,  precisely  in  its  most 
fertile  districts,  and  at  the  same  time  the  evident  indications 
of  a  steadily  advancing  pauperisation  of  our  two  agricultural 
classes  :  growing  tax  arrears  on  the  part  of  the  peasants  and 
growing  indebtedness  of  our  landed  proprietors,  rapid  increase 
in  the  ranks  of  the  agricultural  proletariat,  stagnation  of  our 
interior  trade,  and  finally — as  a  result  of  all  this — the  stationary 
condition  of  the  population  of  the  Russian  Centre. 

NovikofF,  whom  we  have  heard  before,  refers  to  a 
series  of  articles  on  agricultural  conditions  in  the  heart 
of  Russia  which  appeared  in  the  Grashdanin,  a  journal 
widely  read  throughout  Russia  and  of  recognised  con- 
servative and  nationalistic  tendency.  He  quotes  among 
others  the  following  passage: 


i66  Russia 

Our  contemporary  agricultural  life  in  Russia,  peasant  as  pro- 
prietor, is  a  complete  non-sense  and  surrounded  with  impene- 
trable darkness.  These  immense  distances  without  passable 
communication  of  any  kind,  yet  penetrated  by  elegantly  con- 
structed railroad  tracks  ;  these  rural  palaces  falling  into  decay 
and  standing  in  the  midst  of  layer  after  layer  of  straw  huts,  one 
attached  to  the  other ;  this  fat  soil  which  does  not  even  return 
what  is  put  into  it;  these  antediluvian  implements,  whereby 
the  horses  are  fairly  slaughtered  ;  these  half-starved  horses  and 
cows  grazing  on  arid  meadows  ;  this  pious  and  devout  people, 
making  holida3-s  out  of  150  days  in  the  year,  when  nothing  is 
done  but  hard  drinking  and  sleeping  ;  these  churches  which  do 
not  improve  morals ;  these  schools  which  do  not  even  teach 
the  art  of  writing ;  these  provinces  and  districts,  welded  to- 
gether in  a  haphazard  way  out  of  populations  and  parties  which 
hate  one  another ;  this  lonesomeness  on  the  desolate  wastes  of 
meagre  fields ;  this  intellectual  hunger  which  is  gradually  in- 
creased by  physical  hunger ;  this  all-pervading  sentiment  of 
enmity,  of  the  crassest  egotism,  of  nameless  terror,  and  the 
groan  of  the  Russian  ploughman  wafted  by  the  wind  to  north, 
south,  west,  and  east,  sighing  :  "  Save  thyself  if  thou  canst ! " 
— is  not  that  a  non-sense,  an  absurdity,  when  we  recall  the  fact 
that  Russia  is  an  independent  and  agricultural  land,  and  that 
the  Russian  is  well-meaning,  capable,  and  enduring?  But  if 
the  root  is  rotten,  the  branches  will  not  thrive. 

And  Novikoff  adds  in  comment:  "  Reading  this,  one 
shudders,  and  the  doubt  for  a  moment  arises  whether 
all  this  is  truth.  But  alas,  all  who  are  living  in  vil- 
lages, all  of  us  who  love  our  country  sincerel}^  feel  and 
know  that  the  writer,  if  he  laid  on  vivid  colours,  is 
unquestionably  in  the  right." 

Of  course,  M.  de  Witte  is  perfectly  familiar  with 
these  plaints.  He  himself  makes  the  calculation  in  his 
budget  report  of  1903  that  the  deficiency  in  agricultural 
returns  brought  about  by  the  crop  failures  during  the 


The  Famous  Black-Earth  Belt     167 

preceding  five  years,  amounts  to  a  clear  billion  roubles. 
Nevertheless,  sticking  to  his  old  text,  he  reiterates  his 
satisfaction  at  the  satisfactory  revenues  of  the  govern- 
ment and  the  rapid  growth  of  expenditures,  arriving  at 
the  conclusion,  "that  in  the  general  welfare  of  the 
country  no  decrease  is  noticeable."  If  we  should  set 
out  to  figure  up  all  the  losses  which  Russian  industry 
has  met  with  during  the  same  lustrum,  we  should  arrive 
just  about  at  another  lost  billion.  And  is  it  credible 
that  Russia  has  lost  such  enormous  sums  within  a  mere 
five  years  without  suSering  in  her  welfare  ? 

Moreover,  is  it  feasible  to  cure  conditions  such  as 
those  sketched  above  by  tax  remittances  and  financial 
government  aid? 

And  yet  the  conditions  outlined  in  the  foregoing 
concern  Great  Russia,  a  group  of  provinces  forming,  as 
was  pointed  out,  the  very  backbone  of  the  whole  Em- 
pire. If  things  proceed  at  this  present  pace,  the  finan- 
cial, intellectual,  and  moral  centre  and  radiating  point 
of  Russia  must  shift  elsewhere.  But  will  not  that  de- 
stroy the  cohesion  of  the  Empire  ?  Hitherto  the  political 
forces  of  Russia  were  in  the  main  concentrated  in  the 
eighty-six  millions  of  Russians,  and  the  non-Russian 
elements,  numbering  about  forty-four  million,  were 
useful  indeed  in  forming  the  leaven  in  this  huge  mass, 
the  vital  principle  energising  it  and  pushing  it  on  the 
path  of  progress,  but  were  certainly  not  the  determining 
factors. 

On   the  other  hand,  we  shall  see  that  it  has  been 


1 68  Russia 

Russia's  persistent  policy  to  attempt  the  Russification 
of  all  her  non-Russian  elements,  by  means  foul  or  fair. 
It  will  be  seen  that  she  has  estranged  from  herself,  one 
by  one,  all  the  progressive  and  more  enlightened  frag- 
ments of  her  population  of  foreign  blood,  doing  her 
level  best  to  stamp  out  the  autonomy  of  these  outlying 
provinces,  and  lowering  their  intellectual  and  economic 
standard.  By  dint  of  persistent  effort,  employing  all 
the  forces  of  brute  power,  superior  numbers,  cunning 
persuasion,  and  tyrannic  measures,  Russia  has  suc- 
ceeded to  a  very  large  extent  in  her  purpose.  So  well 
indeed,  that  in  all  her  border  provinces  the  native  non- 
Russian  population,  forming  the  large  majority,  is  dis- 
tinctly disaffected,  nay,  politically  hostile  to  Russia 
proper.  The  fact  that  these  disaffected  provinces  are 
precisely  those  of  most  account,  both  in  wealth  and  in 
intellect,  makes  the  case  fraught  with  all  the  more 
danger. 

The  interests  of  state  and  nation  have  grown  to  be 
divergent.  Let  a  storm  come,  one  such,  let  us  say,  as 
the  Polish  Revolution  of  1863,  and  what  will  the  out- 
come be  ? 

What,  indeed,  can  Russia  do  in  the  present  circum- 
stances to  heal  this  wound  in  her  very  vitals,  a  wound 
so  deep  and  cancerous  that  ordinary  remedies  must  fail  ? 


CHAPTER  VII 

DECAY  OF  THE  NOBILITY 

A  Striking  Parallel  with  the  Former  Southern  Slaveholders  in 
the  United  States — Patriarchal  Conditions  under  the  Old 
Regime,  Suddenly  Superseded  by  Wholly  Modern  Ones— 
The  Russian  Nobility  Proved  its  Incapacity  to  Adapt 
themselves  to  New  Conditions — "Easy  Money"  Fur- 
nished by  the  Government  Proves  the  Ruin  of  the  Estate 
Owners— One  Billion  and  a  Half  of  Roubles  Squandered 
within  Twenty  Years  by  the  Russian  Nobility— Terpi- 
goreflPs  Realistic  Tales  Show  the  Process  of  Degeneration 
—One-third  of  the  Titled  Landowners  Driven  off  their 
Paternal  Acres  by  Spendthrift  Methods  and  Usury — Ab- 
senteeism Another  Deplorable  Feature — The  Only  Flour- 
ishing Estates  in  Russia  Proper  Are  those  of  the  Sugar  Beet 
Raisers— The  One-Crop  System  and  the  Decline  of  Cattle 
Breeding— The  Central  Government  Unable  to  Stay  the 
Nobility  in  their  Downward  Course 

AN  interesting  parallel  might  be  drawn  between  the 
condition  of  the  Russian  nobility  and  that  of  the 
Southern  aristocracy  in  the  United  States,  both  before 
and  after  the  Civil  War.  It  is  more  striking  than 
would  appear  at  first  sight.  The  Russian  noble  was 
and  is  a  large  landholder.  But  the  value  of  his  pro- 
perty consisted  in  the  main  not  in  the  land  itself,  but  in 
the  htiman  chattels  he  owned.     Just  as  the  Southern 

169 


1 70  Russia 

magnates,  in  the  daj's  before  the  great  war,  were  reck- 
oned as  owners  of  so  many  hundreds  or  thousands,  not 
of  acres,  but  of  slaves,  so,  too,  the  Russian  nobles  were 
spoken  of  as  worth  so  many  thousands  of  serfs.  Just 
as  on  the  plantations  in  Virginia  black  men  and  women 
were  ' '  raised ' '  for  the  down-South  markets  of  New 
Orleans,  Natchez,  and  Charleston,  so  there  was  a  lively 
industry  of  similar  description  on  many  large  Russian 
estates.  We  get  an  inkling  of  this  in  Gogol's  famous 
realistic  tale.  Dead  Souls,  and  another  Russian  writer 
still  more  to  the  point,  Terpigoreff,  tells  us  in  one  of  his 
novels  of  a  wealthy  and  noble  Russian  widow,  owning 
vast  estates  in  the  province  of  TambofF,  who  found  the 
latter  unprofitable  and  hence  bought  up  for  a  song  large 
tracts  of  fertile  steppe  lands  in  the  Kirghiz  country  east 
of  the  Volga.  To  these  she  had  taken  thousands  of 
her  serfs,  men,  women,  and  children,  all  loaded  down 
with  shackles  and  chains,  and  turned  them  loose  on  this 
virgin  soil  to  create  wealth  for  her.  The  main  wealth 
was  the  natural  increase  of  these  serfs,  namely,  children. 
On  their  broad  acres  these  Russian  nobles  had  been 
living  in  true  patriarchal  fashion.  Monarch  of  all  he 
surveyed,  the  noble  was  not  only  the  absolute  lord  of 
his  more  or  less  numerous  herd  of  serfs — and  their 
number,  with  many  of  the  more  powerful  landowners, 
ran  up  into  the  twenty  thousand,  with  not  a  few  even 
into  the  fifty  thousand  and  more — but  he  was  the  very 
impersonation  of  the  government  itself,  an  autocrat  as 
absolute  as  the  Czar,  though  on  a  smaller  scale.     If  he 


Decay  of  the  Nobility  171 

chose  he  could  have  any  of  his  serfs  whipped  to  death, 
and  there  was  never  a  murmur.  Within  his  family  he 
was  just  as  absolute.  His  children  and  the  womenfolk 
trembled  at  the  very  sound  of  his  voice  when  he  hap- 
pened to  be  in  ill-humour.  He  could  send  any  of  his 
human  chattels  to  Siberia  in  chains,  or  if  so  minded  he 
could  sell  them.  Of  money  he  had  little  and  recked 
less.  What  need  of  it  for  him  ?  He  had  all  that  heart 
could  desire  on  his  own  soil.  His  clever  male  serfs 
built  his  houses,  stables,  and  barns;  they  carved  and 
made  his  furniture,  and  they  tilled  his  soil,  harvested 
his  crops,  raised  his  cattle,  slaughtered  his  swine,  and 
did  everything  else  that  his  needs  required.  His  fe- 
male serfs  span  and  wove  all  the  linen  and  cloth  used. 
They  attended  to  all  the  domestic  industry  that  his  es- 
tate called  for.  Some  of  the  handiest  of  both  sexes  he 
sent  to  Moscow  or  St.  Petersburg  to  learn  a  trade  and 
perhaps  set  up  in  business  for  themselves.  In  that 
case  they  were  bound  to  send  him  every  5'ear  the  obrok 
(head  money),  and  thus  he  got  some  cash.  When  he 
did  so  he  lost  no  time  in  spending  it  in  riotous  Hving  in 
the  nearest  large  town,  perhaps  losing  it  all  in  cham- 
pagne and  cards,  or  perhaps  retaining  enough  to  come 
home  with  a  Persian  rug  or  two  or  with  some  cases  of 
wine.  What  could  be  more  patriarchal  than  that  ? 
And  what,  by  the  way,  could  resemble  more  the  life  of 
some  of  the  Southern  large  slaveholders  before  the  War 
of  Secession  ? 

With  this  difference,  however.     The   abolition   of 


172  Russia 

slavery  had  been  ventilated  and  advocated  more  or  less 
for  fifty  years  before  it  was  finally  brought  about  in  the 
South.  In  Russia,  where  at  the  death  of  Nicholas  I. 
serfdom  seemed  based  as  firm  as  the  rocks,  the  blow 
came  overnight,  scarcely  with  any  preparation.  On 
February  19,  1861,  Alexander  II.  issued  his  memorable 
ukase,  and  on  that  day  every  one  of  the  fifty  million 
serfs  became  a  freeman,  and  could  go  whither  he 
pleased.  Some  of  the  Russian  writers,  Terpigoreff 
particularly,  tell  us  of  the  chaos  that  succeeded  the 
emancipation  of  the  serfs.  The  Russian  nobles  were 
stunned  and  dazed.  It  took  them  years  to  accustom 
themselves  to  the  very  thought  of  the  enormous  change 
wrought  in  the  entire  social  fabric  of  Russia.  In  that 
respect  again  the  parallel  with  the  South  holds  good. 
There  are  living  even  to-day  thousands  of  Russian 
nobles  with  their  thoughts  entirely  in  the  past.  Cer- 
tainly, it  will  require  generations  to  pull  them  out  of 
their  slough  of  despond,  and  it  may  never  be  done. 

True,  the  government  did  not  take  away  their  serfs 
without  a  form  of  payment.  The  government  took 
away  some  of  their  land  and  all  of  their  human  chattels 
and  gave  them  in  return  money.  This  money  took  the 
shape  of  redemption  bonds.  These  bonds  the  former 
owner  of  the  serfs  and  of  the  land  could  sell  to  banks, 
speculators,  or  usurers  for  cash — at  a  discount,  of 
course. 

Now,  what  happened  was  this:  The  nobles,  never 
having  been  used  to  money,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten 


Decay  of  the  Nobility  173 

were  in  a  thoroughly  bewildered  condition.  Serfs  or 
free  labour  they  had  none,  for  the  emancipated  peas- 
ants for  several  years  after  they  had  become  freemen 
(again  exactly  as  happened  in  the  South)  disliked  in- 
tensely resuming  work  for  their  former  lords,  and  pre- 
ferred tasting  the  delights  of  town  in  haphazard  labour, 
or  else  wandering  about  the  country  in  droves,  va- 
grant-fashion. So,  then,  the  noble  saw  his  property  go 
to  waste  and  ruin.  To  escape  the  irksome  situation  he 
took  the  large  sums  of  money  received  in  payment  of 
his  land  and  serfs,  sums  which  at  the  time  seemed  in- 
exhaustible to  him,  and  with  his  family  went,  nabob- 
fashion,  to  reside  abroad,  where  within  a  couple  of 
years  he  squandered  it,  and  then  returned,  a  thoroughly 
broken  man,  to  his  ruined  homestead.  A  few  en- 
deavoured to  be  wiser.  They  went  to  St.  Petersburg, 
tried  to  get  into  the  government  service,  and  had  their 
children  educated  for  the  same  career.  But  they,  too, 
did  not  build  as  wisely  as  they  thought.  The  roots  of 
their  being  remained  in  the  paternal  acres,  and  trans- 
plantation slowly  killed  them,'  morally  for  a  certainty, 
physically  likewise  in  most  cases. 

Truly,  the  case  of  the  Russian  noble  is  a  hard  one, 
and  one  must  needs  give  him  a  small  share  of  one's 
sympathy. 

This  period  of  demoralisation  and  chaotic  conditions 
lasted  for  a  few  years  with  some,  for  many  years  with 
others.  There  is  no  telling  how  many  thousands  of  Rus- 
sian nobles,  kniazes  princes)  some  of  them,  descended 


1 74  Russia 

from  Rurik's  line,  have  gone  to  the  dogs,  body  and 
soul,  in  consequence  of  serf  emancipation.  In  any 
event,  the  number  of  these  has  been  very  considerable. 
Some  of  the  oldest  and  historically  most  renowned  Rus- 
sian families  have  been  wiped  out  completely,  or  deci- 
mated, in  the  process,  such  as  the  Troubetzkois,  Belskys, 
Lvoffs,  and  others.  It  was  a  rude  demonstration  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  strictly  according  to  Darwinian 
methods.  And  when  we  look  at  statistics,  plain  enough 
as  the  tale  is  which  they  tell,  they  lack  the  human  ele- 
ment. They  do  not  show  us  the  tears  of  blood  shed  by 
these  men  and  women  and  children  raised  in  aflfiuence 
and  bred  in  absolute  disdain  of  money. 

It  is  a  modern  tale  of  the  curse  of  slavery,  more  dra- 
matic and  on  a  larger  scale  by  far  than  that  which  the 
former  slaveholding  States  in  North  America  tell.  And 
of  all  the  slaveholding  aristocracy  that  history  knows 
of,  the  Russian  nobility  was  worst  equipped  by  fate  to 
grapple  with  the  new  and  tremendous  problem  it  was 
called  upon  to  solve.  They  were  economically  perfectly 
unprepared,  and  were  thrust  out  from  an  antiquated 
system  of  patriarchal  economic  conditions  into  the 
modern  system  based  on  money  values,  and  purchase 
and  sale.  Another  point:  the  Slav  is  hospitable  in  the 
extreme,  and  lavish  in  expenditure  without  a  thought 
of  the  morrow;  of  all  the  Slavs  the  Russian  most  so. 
By  nature  he  is  a  poor  agriculturist,  and  on  exactly 
even  conditions  will  always  be  beaten  by  his  western 
competitors.     We  have  already  seen  that  the  peasant. 


Decay  of  the  Nobility  175 

partly  by  reason  of  historical  development,  partly  by 
inherent  deficiencies,  is  not  capable  of  intense  and 
steady  work.  Yet  it  is  this  very  peasant  upon  whom 
the  Russian  noble  must  always  rely  for  labour. 

During  the  long  period  succeeding  purely  chaotic 
conditions  created  by  serf  emancipation,  the  Russian 
noble  has  tried,  with  frequent  lifts  given  him  by  his 
government  in  the  shape  of  "  easy  money,"  to  make 
something  out  of  himself.  But  it  is  a  deplorable  fact 
that  save  in  relatively  few  cases  he  has  failed.  For 
foremen  and  managers  he  hired  on  contracts  of  long 
duration  Germans  from  the  Baltic  provinces  or  from 
Germany  proper.  These  men,  as  a  rule,  could  accom- 
plish nothing  with  the  only  labour  at  hand,  the  Russian 
peasant.  Being  Protestants,  they  did  not  sympathise 
with  the  enormous  number  of  holidays  enjoined  on  the 
peasant  by  the  Orthodox  Church  and  State.  Still,  in 
the  main,  they  have  done  better  as  overseers  and  ex- 
ecutive oflScials  for  the  Russian  noble  than  probably 
anybody  else  could  have  done.  For  one  thing,  they 
were  honest,  and  did  not  steal  as  Russian  and  Polish 
foremen  were  in  the  habit  of  doing.  The  system  in 
vogue,  that  of  securing  labour  in  the  spring  and  sum- 
mer, until  the  close  of  the  harvest,  is  in  itself  a  precari- 
ous one,  and  never  furnishes  reliable  results.  Instead 
of  a  drove  of  three  hundred  or  six  hundred  peasants 
hired  by  contract,  often  but  two  hundred  or  even  one 
hundred  of  them  will  show  up,  the  others  having  gone 
ofi"  to  another  estate  offering  a  kopek  or  two  more  per 


176  Russia 

day.  The  owners  themselves  to  this  day  know  next  to 
nothing  of  rational  agriculture.  The  expensive  ma- 
chinery they  began  to  lay  in  when  they  had  plenty  of 
money,  harvesters,  ploughs,  harrows,  and  other  imple- 
ments worked  by  steam  or  horse,  were  beyond  their 
comprehension.  Thousands  of  these  pieces  of  costly 
machinery,  at  first  imported  from  England  or  Germany, 
later  on  from  the  United  States,  lie  dust-covered  and  in 
fragments  in  Russian  outbuildings,  having  caused  only 
a  waste  of  money  and  time. 

Practically  the  only  class  of  large  landholders  in 
Russia  in  a  more  or  less  flourishing  condition  to-day 
are  those  who  have  taken  up  beet  culture.  The  rural 
distilleries,  for  a  time  yielding  handsome  revenues, 
have  of  late  been  wiped  out  by  the  effects  of  the  gov- 
ernment monopoly  in  the  sale  of  vodka.  It  was  not  so 
with  beet  culture.  Beet  sugar  production  has  become 
an  important  branch  of  Russian  agriculture.  This  has 
brought  about  intensive  cultivation  on  a  number  of 
large  estates.  Somehow,  too,  these  Russian  beet 
growers  have  developed  quite  a  bit  of  commercial  tal- 
ent. They  have  joined  in  with  the  sugar  trust  in 
Russia,  have  exerted  considerable  pressure  on  the  gov- 
ernment, even  on  Witte,  and  are  ' '  shearing  their 
sheep"  in  goodly  fashion,  that  is,  are  obtaining  very 
good  prices  for  their  beets  and  sugar.  Of  course,  the 
consumer  has  to  pay  for  it.  Sugar  of  Russian  make 
costs  in  Russia  thrice  what  it  does  outside  of  Russia. 

Then  as  to  the  banks.     Despite  the  experience  the 


Decay  of  the  Nobility  i77 

government  had  had,  showing  clearly  that  the  Russian 
noble  could  no  more  be  trusted  with  large  amounts  of 
money  than  could  a  small  child,  the  same  remedy  was 
tried  again  and  again  to  help  the  demoralised  land- 
owner to  his  feet.  In  1874  the  huge  Land  Mortgage 
Bank  was  founded  with  the  aid  of  government  funds 
and  under  government  control.  But  the  noble  was  so 
ignorant  of  money  affairs  that  he  merely  looked  upon 
this  as  a  charitable  institution.  He  considered  loans 
purely  in  the  nature  of  gifts  from  the  Little  Father  in 
St.  Petersburg,  and  no  idea  ever  entered  his  head  of 
repaying  such  loans.  Thus,  additional  thousands  of 
nobles  went  to  the  wall.  In  1886  and  again  in  1894, 
after  the  above  bank  had  been  abolished,  the  govern- 
ment engaged  in  similar  enterprises.  But  the  Nobles' 
Agrarian  Bank  and  the  Rural  Agrarian  Bank  effected 
nothing  more  than  their  predecessors  had.  The  titled 
landowners  had  not  yet  learned  to  make  a  wise  use  of 
money.  In  fact,  they  have  n't  learned  it  to  this  day. 
•It  is  scarcely  to  be  believed  how  even  in  this  year  of 
1904  the  Russian  noble,  as  a  type,  is  unsophisticated 
and  childlike  to  a  degree. 

Then  came  the  period  of  railroad  building  under 
Wishnegradsky  and  Witte.  Again  the  Russian  noble 
considered  this  a  good  opportunity  for  displaying  his 
fancied  financial  talent.  All  through  the  provinces  he 
joined  stock  companies.  Not  in  one  case  in  a  thousand 
did  he  know  anything  whatever  of  their  operations, 
but  it  was  sufficient  to  his  mind  that  his  brother,  or 


178  Russia 

Cousin  Nikita,  or  his  neighbour,  Sergei  Alexandro- 
vitch,  had  been  to  Paris  and  there  visited,  once  or 
twice,  the  Bourse.  Nearly  all  these  companies  went 
under  in  successive  financial  crashes,  and  with  them, 
of  course,  the  money  invested  by  the  credulous  nobles. 

It  is  calculated  that  in  this  wise  the  Russian  nobility 
have  borrowed  upon  their  estates  and  subsequently  spent 
more  or  less  foolishly  a  matter  of  about  one  and  one- 
half  billions  of  roubles.  Since  the  beginning  of  the 
seventies  it  is  estimated  that  about  one-third  of  the  en- 
tire nobility  have  disappeared  from  their  estates,  driven 
thence  by  usurers,  creditors  of  a  more  reputable  kind, 
or  in  consequence  of  sheer  senseless  wastefulness.  It 
is  estimated  that  the  estates  of  the  nobles,  taking  them 
as  a  whole,  are  mortgaged  or  otherwise  debt- laden 
forty  per  cent,  of  their  full  value.  The  public  lists  of 
estates  oflFered  for  auction  sale  in  consequence  of  final 
decrees  of  the  courts  comprise  all  along  thousands  of 
names.  Such  sales  are  constantly  held  in  every  part 
of  the  empire,  and  they  show  not  only  the  thorough 
rottenness  of  conditions  but  incidentally  also  a  steady 
decline  in  the  value  of  arable  land.  In  some  districts, 
including  very  fertile  ones,  the  price  of  such  land  has 
shrunk  by  as  much  as  fifty  per  cent,  in  comparison 
with  prices  forty  years  ago. 

Of  course,  with  so  many  thousands  of  noble  land- 
holders gone  to  the  wall,  the  totality  of  estates  of  this 
description  has  also  decreased  enormously,  territorially 
considered.     In  1861  the  Russian  nobility  owned  105 


Decay  of  the  Nobility  1 79 

million  dessyatines,  and  after  serf  emancipation  this 
figure  had  been  reduced  to  seventy-eight  millions.  By 
1892  their  holdings  had  dropped  to  fifty-seven  millions. 
Since  then  there  has  been  a  steady  decrease  of  just 
about  one  million  dessj'-atines  every  year.  To-day  the 
nobility  own  only  about  forty  per  cent,  of  the  land  they 
did  in  1861.  The  other  sixty  per  cent,  have  passed 
into  the  hands  of  peasants,  merchants,  land  usurers, 
and  prosperous  townspeople.  Of  the  forty-six  million 
dessyatines  still  remaining  in  their  hands  only  some 
twenty-four  millions  are  tilled  soil,  the  remainder  are 
forests  and  meadows. 

This  whole  process  of  disintegration  is  vividly  de- 
scribed in  Russian  literature  of  the  past  forty  years, 
and  the  writings  of  Terpigoreff  afford  particularly 
graphic  pictures  of  this  kind.  We  meet  in  his  realistic 
tales  with  two  types,  both  evidently  numerous  and 
well-defined.  The  one  ruins  the  nobleman,  the  other 
the  peasant.  The  latter  obtains  advances  on  his  crops 
for  which  he  is  made  to  pay  usurious  interest,  losing 
thus,  one  by  one,  his  horse,  his  cow,  his  chickens  and 
pigs,  and  his  entire  crop.  The  nobleman  is  made  to 
sell,  on  similar  terms  and  under  like  circumstances,  his 
horses  and  cattle,  then  his  barns  and  stables,  next  his 
park  or  gardens,  his  orchard,  the  very  furniture  in  his 
house,  and  lastly  the  house  itself.  Everything  is  carted 
off  by  the  usurer;  even  the  ancient  oak  walls  and  ceil- 
ings of  his  dwelling,  curiously  carved  and  stained  with 
age,  are  taken  to  town  by  the  creditor,  and  there  fitted 


i8o  Russia 

together  once  more.  The  old  furniture  is  placed  where 
it  stood  before,  and  thus  the  very  seat  of  ancient  boyar 
splendour  has  been  moved  into  the  capital  of  the  pro- 
vince or  district,  and  in  it  sits  the  usurer,  with  fat  paunch 
and  twinkling  eyes,  while  the  former  lord  of  the  soil  is 
begging  somewhere  for  a  little  government  position  in 
St.  Petersburg,  Moscow,  Tver,  or,  failing  that,  in  a 
prosperous  province  like  Smolensk.  In  many  cases, 
too,  he  has  sunk  to  a  lower  level,  become  a  confirmed 
drunkard  and  vagrant.  Many  of  these  one-time  nobles 
have  disappeared,  nobody  knows  whither;  probably 
they  belong  to  the  colonies  of  Russian  adventurers  and 
professional  gamblers  existing  in  the  various  capitals 
of  Europe  and  also  to  be  met  with  in  such  places  as 
Monte  Carlo,  Baden-Baden,  and  elsewhere.  The  place 
where  once  the  house  stood  is  desolate.  The  ancient 
linden  trees,  formerly  standing  in  majestic  rows  along 
the  main  pathway  leading  to  the  spacious  manor-house, 
have  been  cut  down,  and  the  broad  acres  surrounding 
it  have  gone  piecemeal  to  the  peasants  in  the  neigh- 
bouring villages.  The  meadows  are  leased  or  rented, 
and  the  fine  forests  farther  off  have  been  sold  for  tim- 
ber and  fuel.  The  worst  in  this  respect  are  the  pro- 
vinces of  Tamboff,  Orel,  Tula,  but  even  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  Moscow  may  be  found  to-day  hundreds  of 
such  dismantled  or  mangled  estates. 

One  thing  is  particularly  noticeable  in  all  the  Russian 
writings  dealing  with  these  conditions:  the  total  lack  of 
prudence,  ordinary  foresight,  steadiness  of  character, 


Decay  of  the  Nobility  i8i 

self-respect,  and  experience,  and,  on  the  other  band,  the 
superabundance  of  creduHty,  soft-heartedness,  careless- 
ness, and  want  of  scruples  in  taking  and  giving,  the  un- 
sated  power  of  enjoying  all  the  good  things  of  life,  and 
the  wide-hearted  tolerance  of  indefensible  men  and  con- 
ditions. Children  of  nature  they  are,  mentally  and  in 
character  still  in  their  teens,  and  their  thoughts  do  not  go 
beyond  the  morrow.  They  have  never  learned  to  grasp 
facts  clearly,  nor  to  think  of  economy,  of  national  econ- 
omy least  of  all.  The  want  of  common  prudence  is  so 
general  with  them  that  Western  people  are  simply  at  a 
loss  to  comprehend  it.  If  the  Russian  nobles  as  a  class 
fairly  represent  the  national  character,  no  favourable 
prognostication  can  be  made  of  the  ultimate  fate  of  the 
nation.  Certainly,  in  that  case  the  Russian  will  never 
acquire  independence  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  sense  of  the 
word. 

During  the  reign  of  Alexander  II.  first  attempts  were 
made  to  educate  the  people,  and  more  particularly  its 
leaders,  the  nobility,  to  self-government  and  self-action. 
That  monarch  called  into  life  the  zemstva  (provincial 
chambers),  and  made  a  serious  effort  to  organise  courts 
of  law  and  legal  administration.  For  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  up  to  1 86 1  the  nobility  had  ruled  the 
peasantry,  that  is,  the  ninety-five  per  cent,  of  the  na- 
tion, and  that  their  will  had  been  law,  the  only  law,  in 
the  whole  interior  of  the  vast  empire.  Alexander  II, 
since  1863  opened  to  the  nobility  these  two  fields  of 
useful  and  financially  profitable  labour.     The  nobility 


1 82  Russia 

thronged  particularly  into  all  the  places  and  offices 
created  by  the  provincial  institutions.  But  we  will  see 
elsewhere  how  the  nobles,  through  faults  of  their  own, 
lost  and  misused  this  opportunity.  When  provincial 
self-government  dwindled,  little  by  little,  until  it  be- 
came a  mere  shadow,  the  nobility,  too,  were  deprived 
of  their  lucrative  offices.  A  new  element,  not  of  noble 
birth,  but  one  which  had  learned  to  work  in  earnest, 
began  to  crowd  out  the  nobles.  This  new  element  be- 
came for  the  nobility  what  the  kulak  was  and  is  for  the 
peasant.  It  has  succeeded  them  not  only  in  the  own- 
ership of  their  estates,  but  has  also  largely  replaced 
them  in  every  sphere  of  provincial  and  government 
service. 

In  the  old  days  the  nobleman  did  not  raise  on  his 
great  estates  much  more  cereals  than  was  needed  for 
himself  and  his  serfs.  Fifty  years  ago,  wheat,  rye, 
oats,  etc.,  were  not  worth  much  in  Russia.  A  bushel 
of  oats,  for  instance,  was  then  worth  about  four  or  five 
cents,  and  wheat  about  twice  that.  Even  at  such  low 
prices,  purchasers  were  often  scarce  or  not  at  all  to  be 
had.  Of  course,  this  was  in  pre-railroad  days.  Thus, 
cereal  production  on  the  whole  was  much  less  than 
nowadays  in  Russia,  though  consumption  was  much 
larger  per  head,  owing  to  lack  of  export  and  to  greater 
wealth  of  the  population.  Nevertheless,  each  estate 
raised  something  more  in  breadstuffs  than  was  needed. 
There  was  always  a  reserve,  and  that  came  in  very  op- 
portunely during  years  of  deficient  crops.     Famine  was 


Decay  of  the  Nobility  183 

unknown  then  throughout  the  empire.  Indeed,  it  was 
to  the  landholder's  own  profit  to  keep  his  serf,  the 
peasant,  in  good  physical  condition,  just  as  it  was  to 
the  Southern  slave-owner's  interest  to  keep  his  black 
field  hands  in  shape  for  work.  Population  was  not  so 
dense  then,  even  in  the  "  black-earth  belt,"  and  fertile 
steppe  land,  virgin  soil,  was  cheap  and  near  by.  When- 
ever corn  land  showed  signs  of  exhaustion,  it  was  left 
fallow  and  new  soil  broken.  The  best  of  the  wheat 
was  sent  to  Moscow  and  St.  Petersburg,  to  the  mills; 
in  sheep-raising  districts  the  wool  was  sold,  and  cattle 
and  horse  breeding  likewise  brought  in  some  money. 
The  taxes  were  small,  and  cash  expenditures  seldom 
required. 

But  after  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  trouble  began.  First  there  was  a  lack  of 
labour,  and  next  of  money,  and  many  thousands  were 
ruined.  Meanwhile,  though,  railroads  were  built,  and 
the  network  of  them  became  denser  and  denser. 
Freight  rates  were  greatly  reduced  during  Wishne- 
gradsky's  regime.  The  consequence  was  that  it  now 
began  to  pay  to  carry  wheat  from  estates  not  too  far 
(that  is,  not  more  than  one  hundred  verst)  from  the 
railroad,  to  the  nearest  station,  and  to  send  it  thence  to 
an  export  harbour  or  across  the  frontier  to  western 
neighbouring  nations.  The  time  came  when  wheat 
was  worth  three  times,  yea,  six  times,  what  it  had 
fetched  formerly.  The  magnetic  attraction  of  the 
Baltic   export   harbours  reached  as  far  as   the   broad 


1 84  Russia 

steppes  beyond  the  Volga.  And  now  the  raising  of 
cereals  increased  at  gigantic  strides.  One  piece  of 
meadow  or  grazing  land  after  another  was  transformed 
into  a  wheatfield,  and  thus  it  went  on  for  years.  Agri- 
cultural machinery  was  imported,  and  cereal  produc- 
tion and  export  rose  to  unheard-of  heights.  Everybody 
saw  a  golden  future  stretching  out  endlessly.  To-day 
the  steppe  praised  in  song  and  story,  the  fragrant  and 
flower-decked  steppe,  extending  as  far  as  eye  could 
reach,  is  gone  in  European  Russia.  Beyond  the  Asi- 
atic frontier,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Ural,  it  may  be 
still  seen.  But  in  European  Russia  we  now  have  no- 
thing but  waving  grain  fields  from  Tula  and  Orel  down 
to  the  Black  Sea,  to  the  Volga  and  beyond.  Private 
estates  in  the  Russia  of  to-day  are  made  up  of  new  land 
far  more  than  are  peasant  holdings.  The  latter,  in 
fact,  have  been  tilled  for  centuries,  and  the  fields  of  the 
private  landowner  are,  therefore,  far  more  productive; 
usually  they  give  double  the  quantity  which  peasant 
land  does. 

The  one-crop  system  spread  over  the  whole  em- 
pire, and  nothing  was  ever  put  back  into  the  soil  in 
lieu  of  what  had  been  taken  out  of  it.  Formerly  the 
cattle  at  least  had  been  grazing  in  big  herds,  and  even 
the  pigs  and  horses  had  increased  the  fertility  of  the 
soil.  But  now  these  grazing  lands  disappeared,  and 
with  them  the  cattle,  the  horses,  and  the  swine.  Within 
the  past  twenty  years  alone  the  wealth  of  Russia  in  live 
stock,    etc.,    has   decreased   by  thirty-five    per    cent.. 


Decay  of  the  Nobility  185 

whereas  in  all  the  other  countries  of  Kurope  there  has 
been  a  vast  increase  in  this  respect.  To-day  the  Rus- 
sian peasant  as  well  as  the  landowner  feed  their  stock 
on  straw,  for  of  hay  there  is  scarcely  any.  Thus  the 
fertility  of  the  soil  diminished  gradually  but  surely. 
The  more  railroads  w^ere  built,  the  more  cereals  were 
produced  for  export.  And  at  last  the  climate,  too, 
changed.  The  forests  were  gone,  and  so  were  the 
steppe  and  the  meadows,  and  the  absorbing  power 
which  had  acted  as  a  reservoir  for  the  water  of  the 
country  disappeared  with  them.  Evaporation  now  pro- 
ceeds at  a  rapid  rate.  The  melting  snow  of  the  spring, 
the  rain  of  summer  and  fall,  now  rush  headlong  over 
the  land  to  the  nearest  river-bed,  devastating  the  iSelds 
and  carrying  oflf  valuable  chemical  properties  of  the 
soil,  instead  of,  as  formerly,  nourishing  the  latter. 
Drouth  and  crop  failures  became  regular  features  of 
Russia,  and  they  will  continue  to  be. 

Between  1870  and  1890  there  had  been  an  almost  un- 
broken succession  of  plentiful  harvests,  and  prices  had 
ruled  high.  Then  came  the  reaction.  The  famines  of 
1891  and  1892  had  scarcely  passed,  and  had  been  fol- 
lowed by  another  three  years  of  large  crops,  when 
cereals  fell,  dating  from  1894,  all  over  the  world.  The 
fat  years  had  not  been  utilised  wisely  by  the  Russian 
landholder.  In  his  old  lavish  way  he  had  squandered 
his  money,  nay,  had  even  piled  mortgage  on  mortgage 
on  his  land,  the  Agrarian  Bank  making  this  an  easy 
matter  for  him.     In  very  rare  cases  only  had  he  saved 


i86  Russia 

any  capital.  An  exception  must  be  made  in  favour  of 
the  beet  grower  in  the  South  and  South-west.  As  men- 
tioned before,  sugar  beet  raising  is  made  very  profitable 
by  the  Russian  government.  The  owners  of  that  sort 
of  estate,  besides,  showed  wisdom  in  introducing  inten- 
sive methods  of  agriculture.  On  some  of  them  as  much 
as  three  hundred  thousand  and  even  five  hundred 
thousand  bushels  of  wheat  are  raised.  But  the  forests 
were  cut  down  in  that  whole  region,  for  coal  there  was 
none,  and  the  boilers  had  to  be  heated  with  cord-wood. 
Another  factor  entered  into  the  changing  conditions 
of  the  landowners,  namely,  absenteeism.  Scarcity  of 
capital  to  work  their  estates  properly,  the  prevailing  in- 
security in  obtaining  required  help,  and  in  many  cases 
the  want  of  modern  implements,  particularly  agricul- 
tural machinery,  drove  the  landowners  ofi"  their  estates 
into  the  government  or  provincial  service.  This  made 
them  absentees,  and  compelled  them  to  rent  or  lease, 
in  many  cases  even  to  sell  in  instalments  piece  after 
piece  of  their  land  to  the  peasantry.  Of  course  such 
land  was  misused  even  worse  than  the  communal  lands 
of  the  peasants,  and  within  a  short  time,  it,  too,  showed 
signs  of  exhaustion.  Whenever  and  wherever  the  de- 
gree was  reached  that  the  land  no  longer  could  be 
profitably  worked,  it  was  allowed  to  lie  fallow  and  soon 
was  a  waste,  entirely  covered  with  weeds.  Taking  all 
these  facts  together,  and  it  will  not  seem  astonishing 
that  the  Russian  nobility  is  on  the  down-grade.  But 
even  where  their  lands  have  passed  into  the  hands  of 


Decay  of  the  Nobility  187 

other  owners,  moneyed  men  of  the  towns,  merchants 
and  the  like,  the  land  has  not  profited  by  the  change. 
The  same  old  wasteful  methods  were  pursued  by  the 
new  owners,  it  being  only  a  question  of  getting  out  of 
the  soil  as  much  as  possible  in  as  short  a  time  as  con- 
venient. The  only  change  for  the  better  has  been  in 
such  cases  where  the  peasant  has  been  able  to  raise 
enough  money  to  buy  land  of  his  own,  or  where  the 
young  and  progressive  sons  of  landholders  have  settled 
down  on  the  diminished  paternal  acres.  The  number 
of  those  belonging  to  the  last-named  two  categories  is 
increasing,  but  is  not  yet  large  enough  to  play  any 
considerable  figure. 

The  same  remark  applies  to  those  owners  of  estates 
who  have  introduced  rational  agricultural  methods, 
such  as  are  in  vogue  in  countries  to  the  west.  With 
the  exception  of  the  sugar  beet  raising  the  number  of 
such  owners  is  not  large,  although  it  may  be  surmised 
that  it  will  steadily  increase,  for  during  the  last  two 
decades  a  beginning  has  been  made  by  the  government 
in  founding  agricultural  colleges  where  sensible  and 
scientific  methods  of  soil  cultivation  are  taught. 
Furthermore,  the  number  of  young  Russians,  sons  of 
unprogressive  landholders,  who  are  sent  to  study  agri- 
culture abroad  is  growing. 

The  general  conditions  for  a  passing  from  extensive 
and  slovenly  methods  of  agriculture  to  intensive  and 
rational  ones  are  not  favourable  in  Russia  to-day.  But 
this  change  is  bound  to  come,  nevertheless,  for  it  is  the 


1 88  Russia 

only  salvation.  Nothing  else  will  accomplish  the  re- 
demption of  the  soil  for  the  titled  and  untitled  land- 
holder there.  The  present  .system  of  never  using  any 
manure  on  the  fields  and  meadows  was  only  possible  for 
any  length  of  time  while  plenty  of  new  land  could  be 
had  cheap.  That  is  the  case  no  longer.  The  one-crop 
system  must  be  broken  with,  or  Russian  agriculture  is 
doomed.  These  two  facts  seem  to  result  clearly  from 
all  that  can  be  learned  reliably  about  the  present  state 
of  agrarian  Russia.  Persistence  in  the  old  and  sense- 
less method  will  within  a  few  years  bring  the  Russian 
tiller  of  the  soil  to  the  point  where  his  labour  no  longer 
pays.  In  fact,  that  point  has  alread)^  been  reached  in 
the  case  of  millions  of  peasants  and  landholders.  They 
do  not  get  sufficient  out  of  the  soil  to  yield  them  a  de- 
cent living,  or  an}'  living  at  all,  and  they  have  to  make 
up  the  deficiency,  the  one,  the  landholder,  by  holding 
official  positions  at  a  salary,  and  the  other,  the  peas- 
ant, by  labouring  in  town  through  the  year  or  part  of 
it,  leaving  the  tilling  of  his  strip  of  land  to  his  family. 

But  it  will  be  a  very  hard  matter  for  both  peasant 
and  landholder  to  effect  this  change;  hardest,  of  course, 
for  the  peasant,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  chapter  devoted 
to  him.  Yet  the  Russian  landholder  is  in  some  respects 
even  inferior  to  the  former  serf,  for  the  habit  of  indo- 
lence is  deeply  ingrained  in  him,  and  his  spendthrift 
nature  will  make  economy  extremely  difficult  to  him. 
With  that  the  Russian  noble  has  been  accustomed  ever 
since  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs  to  look  to  his  gov- 


Decay  of  the  Nobility  189 

ernment,  central  or  provincial,  for  financial  aid  in  all 
his  troubles,  thus  rendering  the  growth  of  a  healthy 
sentiment  of  self-help  impossible.  It  is  indeed  hard  to 
conceive  how  he  will  ever  rid  his  mind  of  this  bent. 
An  excellent  book  written  by  Engelhardt,  a  Russian 
from  the  Baltic  provinces,  gives  a  clear  insight  into  the 
peculiar  state  of  mind  of  the  present  land-holding  noble. 
The  book  shows,  among  other  things,  the  extreme 
backwardness  of  the  titled  landholder's  ideas  regarding 
agriculture,  and  yet  it  concerns  itself  mainly  with  one 
of  the  more  advanced  and  prosperous  provinces, 
namely,  Smolensk.  The  Russian  newspapers  and 
magazines  are  teeming  with  articles  and  communica- 
tions from  this  class  of  rural  proprietors  containing  all 
sorts  of  advice  how  to  cure  the  evils  of  Russian  agri- 
culture. In  almost  every  instance  these  cogitations 
and  counsels  are  puerile  and  unsophisticated  to  an  al- 
most laughable  degree,  but  even  many  of  the  Russian 
government  reports  are  not  much  better  in  this  respect, 
and  not  a  few  of  the  resolutions  passed  and  the  pro- 
ceedings had  by  the  zeinstva  are  of  similar  childlike 
simplicity. 

Such  radical  changes  as  Russian  agriculture  needs 
would  tax  the  brain  and  the  energies  of  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  nation  to  the  utmost — how  then  is  the  childlike 
Russian  to  accomplish  them  ?  The  government  alone, 
even  if  it  were  so  minded,  of  which  there  is  no  indica- 
tion, is  powerless  to  carry  out  such  a  sweeping  reform. 
It  will  require  hard  and  steady  work,  together  with 


190  Russia 

considerable  intellect,  to  effect  it.  And  that  is  pre- 
cisely, as  we  have  seen,  where  the  main  trouble  lies. 
The  liquor  monopoly  exerted  by  the  government  in 
Russia  has  rendered  the  rural  estates  even  less  profit- 
able than  they  were  before,  for  it  has  destroyed  the 
small  rural  distilleries,  and  the  government  during  the 
last  few  years  has  built  some  five  hundred  vodka  refin- 
eries, thus  robbing  the  landholders  of  the  profit  there 
was  in  that.  The  breeding  of  cattle  and  horses  has  de- 
veloped in  Finland,  in  the  Baltic  provinces,  in  Poland, 
even  in  Siberia,  in  exact  proportion  to  the  dwindling  of 
this  rural  industry  in  Central  Russia.  The  districts 
beyond  the  Volga,  particularly  the  one  of  Orenburg, 
used  to  be  much  given  to  the  raising  of  horses,  but 
these  studs  have  now  entirely  disappeared.  How 
greatly  the  fertility  of  the  "  black-earth  belt"  has  suf- 
fered, results  clearly  from  the  fact  that  though  the  ter- 
ritory devoted  to  the  raising  of  cereals  within  it  has 
enormously  enlarged  during  the  past  twent}^  years,  the 
yield  per  acre  has  steadily  diminished.  The  govern- 
ment report  of  M.  Nerucheff,  based  on  laboriously 
obtained  data  and  published  in  the  St.  Petersburg  Vye- 
domosti,  shows  this  beyond  doubt. 

The  outlook  for  the  Russian  landholder,  as  well  as 
for  the  entire  Russian  agriculture,  is  the  blackest  pos- 
sible. One  turns  in  vain  to  all  the  obtainable  sources 
of  information  for  something  which  would  look  like  a 
thorough  remedy. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CHURCH  AND  MORALS 

Relations  of  the  Clergy  with  the  People — From  the  Recollec- 
tions of  a  Village  Priest — "  Drink,  Batooshka,  Drink  !  " — 
The  Priest's  Sole  Diversion  in  the  Country  Is  Vodka — lu- 
sufl&cieut  Means  of  Income  and  Debasing  Surroundings — 
Figures  from  the  Budget  of  the  Holy  Synod — Striking 
Contrast  between  the  Russian  Priest  in  partes  infideliuni 
and  the  One  Left  at  Home — His  Most  Meritorious  Work 
the  Hunting  Down  and  Conversion  of  Renegades  and 
Sectarians  —  The  Holy  Synod  has  Always  Money  for 
Proselytising  Ventures — Official  Statistics  Regarding  Vice 
and  Crime  in  Russia  Scarce  and  Unreliable — But  Recent 
Russian  Literature  Holds  up  the  Mirror  to  Life — Among 
the  Peasantry  are  Noticeable  Two  Main  Facts,  namely,  the 
Loosening  of  the  Marriage  Tie  and  the  Decrease  of  Mater- 
nal Affection  and  Sentiment  of  Duty — Frightful  Infant 
Mortality — The  Unstable  Conditions  of  Russian  Peasant 
Life  largely  Responsible — Apathy  of  the  Orthodox  Church 
Bears  also  Much  of  the  Blame — Russian  Sects — People  of 
the  Old  Faith,  the  Stundists,  the  Molokhans,  and  Dukho- 
borzis — The  British  Bible  Society  First  Introduces  the 
Gospels  in  Russian  to  the  Masses — Pashkoff  and  his 
Followers — A  Remarkable  Type  of  the  Modern  Russian 
Christian — Despite  all  Persecution  a  Steady  Increase  in 
Russian  Sectarianism 

IN  the  Reminiscences  of  a  Village  Pope,  a  book  written 
some  time  ago  and  containing  an  unvarnished  ac- 
count of  conditions  under  which  the  Russian  clergy  of 

191 


192  Russia 

the  Orthodox  Church  have  to  pass  their  hves,  we  find 
a  series  of  interesting  pictures.  These  pictures  are  not 
flattering  to  Russian  culture. 

The  new  pope  arrives  at  the  village  to  which  he  has 
been  assigned  by  his  superiors.  He  finds  no  inn,  no 
hospitable  reception,  absolutely  no  preparation  made 
for  him  and  his  family.  "  Where  is  the  sexton  ?"  he 
asks.  A  tumble-down  hovel  is  pointed  out.  "  And 
the  verger?"  Another  hovel,  still  worse,  is  .shown 
him.  The  new  pope  and  his  family  in  their  kibitka 
drive  to  the  church  and  find  it  small,  unsteady,  and  out 
of  repairs,  surrounded  by  a  rotten  wooden  fence.  The 
guardhouse  of  the  verger  is  built  against  one  of  the 
corners  of  the  church.  That,  too,  is  in  the  last  stages 
of  decay.  They  enter  it,  and  find  the  floor  mere  clay, 
the  two  windows  half  an  arshee7i  (about  fourteen 
inches)  high  and  broken;  the  walls  are  dripping  with 
moisture,  the  corners  encrusted  with  green  mould.  Of 
course,  the  pope  cannot  stay  here;  hje  must  look  around 
for  an  asylum,  and  nobody  even  offers  to  help  him  find 
one.  At  last  he  finds  a  refuge  for  himself  and  family 
for  the  night  with  a  peasant  whose  izba  has  two  rooms. 
One  of  these  the  new  pope  is  given  until  the  morning, 
and  his  wife  and  four  children  have  to  sleep  on  moss 
couches  covered  with  sheepskin. 

Then  begins  the  most  diplomatic  part  of  every  new 
pope's  dealings  with  his  congregation,  the  negotiations 
for  a  suitable  abode  to  be  given  him  and  his  family. 
Kvery  congregation  is  supposed  to  supply  free  quarters, 


Church  and  Morals  193 

but  the  latter  are  in  most  instances  not  a  whit  better 
than  the  average  peasant  hut.  Even  to  obtain  them 
costs  a  great  deal  of  persuasion  and  weeks  of  prelim- 
inary eloquence  on  his  part. 

After  innumerable  prayers,  polite  salutations,  and  painful 
abasements  on  my  side  [says  our  village  pope  in  his  record], 
and  a  great  deal  of  haughty  instructions  and  counter  arguments 
ou  the  part  of  the  members  of  the  congregation,  I  was  a  fort- 
night later  summoned  to  appear  before  the  communal  assembly, 
the  niir,  there  to  beg  them  formally  for  suitable  quarters. 
Long,  long  I  had  to  urge  and  argue  here,  and  had  to  turn  per- 
sonally to  almost  every  member  present,  pleading  hard  with 
them.  A  last,  after  hours  of  persuasion  on  my  part,  they 
listened  to  my  prayers.  I  was  told  to  move  into  the  house  of  a 
peasant  in  tolerable  circumstances.  But  one  single  room  for 
me  and  my  family  was  all  they  gave  me. 

In  their  new  quarters  the  pope  and  his  wife  have  to 
submit  to  new  humiliations  on  the  part  of  their  hosts. 
At  tea  time  appears  the  sexton,  but  he  is  very  drunk. 
The  pope  asks  him  why  he  has  been  drinking  so  much. 
"  Thou,  batooshka,  hast  not  yet  become  accustomed  to 
our  ways,"  says  this  official.  "  After  thou  wilt  have 
spent  a  year  with  us,  it  may  be  thou  wilt  drink  more 
than  I." 

And  it  would  indeed  not  be  astonishing  if  that  should 

come  to  pass,  with  conditions  of  life  such  as  this  new 

shepherd  has  to  face.     His  salary  is  extremely  small, 

not  exceeding  fifty  or  sixty  roubles  the  year,  and  paid 

him  under  difficulties  and  in  small  driblets.     To  make 

both  ends  meet  at  all,  the  new  pope  must  be  on  the 

constant  lookout  for  christenings,  funerals,  weddings, 
13 


194  Russia 

etc.  He  must  drive  in  his  little  kibitka,  pulled  by  an 
ancient  pony,  around  the  neighbouring  villages  of 
smaller  size,  keeping  his  eyes  always  open  for  events 
that  may  bring  him  an  honest  penny.  In  this  way 
he  picks  up  a  couple  of  kopeks  here,  a  meagre  chicken 
or  some  eggs  there,  perhaps  a  bagful  of  flour,  but  often 
he  has  been  driving  about  the  whole  day  and  returns  in 
the  evening  to  his  family  with  perhaps  the  value  of  ten 
or  twelve  kopeks.  These  are  conditions  he  has  to  face 
every  day,  for  his  congregation  is  poor  and  scattered. 
Something,  though,  is  always  offered  him:  vodka. 
Kvery  place  he  goes  it  is  the  one  phrase:  "  Here, 
batooshka,  drink!" 

The  communal  authorities  have  provided  him,  as  we 
have  seen,  with  quarters;  ergo,  the  new  shepherd  must 
show  his  gratitude.  He  must  provide  a  number  of 
gallons  of  liquor,  and  treat  his  congregation  with  it,  on 
pain  of  forfeiting  for  ever  their  goodwill. 

Their  argument  runs  this  wise:  "Thou,  batooshka, 
hast  to  deal  only  with  us.  Thou  must  show  us  respect, 
and  then  we  shall  grant  thee  everything,  and  even  bow 
low  and  respect  thee.  If  thou  wilt  not  do  that,  thou 
mightst  as  well  pack  up  and  leave  us  again.  Be  not 
sparing  of  thy  back;  it  will  not  be  thy  loss  if  thou 
humblest  thyself  before  the  commune." 

And  in  his  dirty  and  slovenly  room,  shared  with  him 
by  all  the  members  of  his  family,  he  is  expected  to 
teach  the  children  religious  observances.  The  window 
panes  are  thickly  covered  with  grime,  and  during  the 


Church  and  Morals  195 

long  winter,  while  he  is  holding  school,  neither  light 
nor  fresh  air  ever  penetrates.  Only  once  a  year,  at 
Eastertide,  the  rotten  flooring  is  swept  and  rinsed  with 
water.  Many  a  young  clergyman  of  the  Orthodox 
Church,  complains  our  pope,  lives  in  a  veritable  cave 
or  else  in  the  village  traktir  (inn).  It  is,  therefore, 
easily  understood  that  drunkenness  is  a  widespread  vice 
among  the  Orthodox  clergy.  This  fact  is  recognised 
by  the  government.  By  the  terms  of  an  administrative 
law  issued  by  the  present  Chief  Procurator  of  the  Holy 
Synod,  Pobyedonostseflf,  the  "service  lists"  of  each 
pope  contain  as  one  of  the  paragraphs  requiring  official 
answers  the  remark  ' '  in  what  measure  does  he  indulge 
in  intoxicating  drink?  "  Such  a  paragraph,  sighs  our 
pope,  does  not  occur  with  other  members  of  the  govern- 
ment. It  will  be  noticed  that  our  pope  reckons  himself 
among  the  government  officials,  purely  and  simply. 
And  he  is  quite  right  in  doing  this. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  accept  these  pictures  as  typical 
for  the  whole  Orthodox  clergy.  They  undoubtedly 
show  only  certain  phases  of  it.  But  making  every  al- 
lowance, the  conditions  under  which  the  great  majority 
of  this  clergy  live  are  far  from  satisfactory.  I,et  us,  for 
instance,  examine  the  budget  of  the  Holy  Synod — the 
body  which  superintends  all  questions  of  salary,  etc. — 
for  a  number  of  years  back.  The  one  for  1901  shows 
an  appropriation  of  ten  and  one-half  million  roubles  for 
"town  and  rural  clergy,  missions,  and  missionaries." 
If  this  sum  were  devoted  entirely  to  the  lower  clergy 


196  Russia 

of  Russia  proper,  it  would  mean  an  average  salary  of 
one  hundred  roubles  per  year  for  each.  But  this  is  not 
the  case.  Quite  a  large  proportion  of  these  ten  and 
one-half  millions  goes  to  missionary  purposes,  to  Or- 
thodox clergymen  abroad,  where  Russian  churches  are 
being  constantly  erected  without  special  need  for  them. 
More  of  it  is  used  for  the  many  Russian  churches  and 
Orthodox  institutions  in  non-Russian  Russia.  Every- 
where, from  Kamchatka  to  the  Vistula,  such  Russian 
churches  and  popes  are  maintained,  often  in  places 
where,  religiously  considered,  there  is  no  need  of  them. 
The  central  government  indeed  makes  liberal  use  of 
the  pope  and  of  the  Orthodox  Church  for  political  pur- 
poses. The  poor  pope,  abused,  half-starved,  and  little 
considered  at  home,  is  sent  as  one  of  the  most  effective 
political  agents  to  every  portion  of  the  empire  where 
Russia  deems  the  strengthening  of  political  ties  advis- 
able. And  the  comparison  between  the  Russian  village 
pope  in  the  heart  of  Russia,  say  in  the  provinces  of 
Saratoff,  or  Tamboff,  with  his  brethren  in  Poland, 
Lithuania,  and  throughout  the  Baltic  borderlands  is 
often  truly  surprising.  In  the  latter,  where  he  is  to 
subserve  the  prestige  of  the  central  government  and  to 
act  as  a  Russianising  agent,  he  has  a  fine  large  dwell- 
ing-house, often  carriage  and  horses,  fine  farm  and 
grazing  lands,  gardens  and  orchards,  and  pretty,  well- 
ordered  church  edifices.  There  he  lives  comfortably  on 
his  regularly  paid  salary  of  one  thousand  to  fifteen  hund- 
red roubles  and  the  proceeds  of  his  fertile  land.     He 


Church  and  Morals  19? 

has  a  good  school  under  him,  does  not  need  to  bend  his 
back  to  the  commune,  nor  to  starve  or  befuddle  himself 
with  vodka.  Religious  brotherhoods  are  founded  by 
him  and  by  Russian  patriots  in  the  interior  provinces, 
and  collections  are  made  in  the  whole  of  Orthodox 
Russia,  in  order  to  make  Lithuanians  and  Letts  good 
Russians  and  members  of  the  Orthodox  Church. 

Scarcely  had  Russia  obtained  a  footing  in  Manchuria 
when  the  Holy  Synod  established  a  Manchurian  bish- 
opric, with  its  seat  in  Peking,  and  a  large  Orthodox 
convent  was  founded  in  Manchuria,  in  order  to  pro- 
mote there  the  Russian  Orthodox  mission.  For  every- 
thing lying  far  off  the  Holy  Synod  has  always  an  open 
hand,  *'  excepting  for  us,  the  poor  popes  in  Russia,"  is 
the  naive  plaint  of  our  village  pope.  And  the  exam- 
ples he  cites  are  indeed  more  or  less  convincing. 

He  makes  the  statement  that  the  regular  salary  re- 
ceived by  a  pope  being  in  charge  of  a  large  parish 
amounts  to  144  roubles  per  year  in  the  interior  of 
Russia,  108  roubles  in  one  of  medium  size,  and  seventy- 
two  in  a  small  one.  With  that  these  poor  popes  are 
even  made  to  pay  back  a  portion  of  their  meagre  earn- 
ings to  the  consistories  for  fees.  In  all  his  dealings 
with  these  church  authorities  he  must  put  his  hand  in 
his  pocket. 

There  is  perceptible  slow  improvement  in  all  this; 
the  Russian  considers  it  good  form  not  to  be  chary  of 
his  gifts  for  Church  and  clergy.  But  at  present  the 
conditions  of  the  rank  and  file,  of  by  far  the  greater 


19^  Russia 

bulk  of  the  lower  clergy,  are  still  nothing  less  than  de- 
plorable. The  ordinary  pope,  of  plebeian  descent,  of 
scant  education,  suffers  intensely  under  the  contempt 
entertained  for  him  by  the  nation  as  a  whole;  even  the 
brutalised  peasant  in  his  heart  deems  himself  superior 
to  the  pope.  And  then  the  strong  pressure  exerted  on 
him  by  the  Holy  Synod,  and  its  subservient  instru- 
ments; the  soldierlike  discipline  enforced  against  the 
lower  clergy;  and  the  miserable  material  position  held 
by  him  —  all  these  disadvantages  make  life  for  the 
average  pope  very  hard  indeed. 

In  this  connection  a  recently  published  collection  of 
tales  dealing  with  the  everyday  life  of  the  Russian  pope 
— it  is  the  Chroniclesoflveskoflf  which  is  meant — affords 
considerable  insight.  These  tales  show  plainly  that  an 
ennobling  influence  by  the  pope  upon  the  grossly  ma- 
terial life  of  the  peasantry  is  simply  an  impossibility; 
they  show  the  position  of  the  Orthodox  clergy  in  a 
humiliating  light.  Even  if  a  pope  is  possessed  of  the 
purest  motives,  of  zeal  for  moral  improvement,  he  is 
hampered  at  every  step  by  the  rigid  Church  discipline 
to  which  he  is  made  to  submit.  A  strict  adherence  to 
the  forms  of  worship  is  demanded  of  him,  and  every  in- 
dividual striving  is  frowned  upon  by  his  superiors;  he 
is  not  allowed  to  apply  in  practice  the  word  of  Script- 
ure. In  his  preachings  and  in  his  intercourse  with  his 
congregation  he  must  stick  closely  to  all  the  rules  laid 
down  by  the  Holy  Synod.  Contravention  in  this  re- 
spect is  punished  far  harder  than  omission  of  any  of  his 


Church  and  Morals  199 

higher  duties.  It  is  the  state,  the  government,  which 
holds  him  strictly  to  account;  he  is  treated  as  a  mere 
tool  of  autocracy. 

Of  late  years  the  Orthodox  clergy  in  Russia  are  ex- 
pected to  devote  their  best  efforts  not  to  the  cure  of 
souls  but  to  the  hunting  down  and  conversion  of  the 
sectarians.  If  a  pope  shows  skill  and  persistence  in 
this  respect  he  is  sure  of  promotion.  Such  men  indeed 
are  soon  sent  to  better  parishes,  by  preference  to  those 
in  the  border  provinces,  where  their  peculiar  talents  in 
espionage  and  conversion  can  best  be  utilised. 

Every  young  diakon  of  the  Russian  Church  knows 
this  lesson  by  heart.  He  can  tell  in  a  moment  to  which 
national  saint  the  peasant  must  turn  for  aid  and  inter- 
cession in  every  particular  case,  from  the  dearth  of  his 
crops  to  sickness  in  the  family  or  a  childless  wife.  But 
to  compose  a  sermon  from  the  Gospel  and  to  endeavour 
to  make  this  same  peasant  a  rational  and  moral  being, — 
these  are  things  which  mean  a  thorny  pathway  for  him. 
He  is  almost  certain  to  come  into  conflict  with  the  Holy 
Synod.  If  he  goes  on  offending,  he  will  be  sent  to  a 
very  poor  parish  far  to  the  north  by  the  shores  of  the 
White  Sea,  soon  to  fall  a  victim  to  the  rigours  of  cli- 
mate; or  else,  if  he  is  unmarried  or  a  widower,  he  is 
buried  alive  in  one  of  the  many  monasteries,  all  of 
which  are  under  the  rule  of  the  so-called  White  Clergy, 
his  bitterest  enemies. 

The  natural  consequence  of  all  this  is  that  the  atti- 
tude which  the  Russian  peasant  occupies  towards  the 


200  Russia 

Church,  that  the  peasant's  entire  rehgious  life,  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  heart  or  with  morals.  It  is  only 
customs,  formulas,  gestures,  genuflexions,  external 
sacrifices,  fasting,  public  confession,  and  fees.  And 
another  consequence  is  that  the  Russian,  as  soon  as  he 
is  touched  by  the  true  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  turns  away 
from  the  State  Church  and  becomes  a  sectarian.  That 
explains  the  enormous  spread  of  sectarianism.  But  the 
Church  instantly  interferes.  And  if  to  this  is  added  the 
political  propaganda,  then  money  is  found  at  once  in 
plenty  for  popes,  missions,  newly  erected  churches,  and 
schools.  For  the  sake  of  national  prestige,  the  Russian 
will  hunger  physically,  as  was  shown  before;  for  its 
sake  he  will  also  hunger  spiritually. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  obtain  a  clear  view  of  the  moral 
life  of  the  Russian  people.  No  statistics,  such  as  every 
Western  country  has,  are  available.  Now  and  then 
some  data,  more  or  less  reliable  and  general,  appear  in 
government  reports,  giving  isolated  facts  about  drunk- 
enness and  certain  other  forms  of  vice  or  crime.  But 
they  are  neither  to  be  depended  on,  nor  do  they  afford 
a  general  idea  of  the  entire  subject.  However,  where 
statistics  fail,  the  realistic  writings  of  popular  authors 
portray  in  a  measure  the  inner  life  of  the  nation.  And 
the  more  recent  Russian  literature  is  a  wonderfully 
correct  mirror  of  this  life .  Tolstoi's  Powers  of  Darkness, 
for  instance,  is  a  veritable  fund  of  knowledge  in  this 
line,  showing  beyond  question  not  only  the  dense 
ignorance  of  the  peasants  in  Great  Russia,  but  also 


Church  and  Morals  201 

their  fearful  moral  degeneracy.  Other  writings,  such 
as  those  of  TerpigorefF,  Gorki,  ChekhofF,  and  Andre- 
yeff,  contribute  much  knowledge  of  this  description,  and 
we  cannot  go  very  far  wrong  when  we  accept  the  pic- 
tures of  the  national  moral  status  presented  by  these  au- 
thors, since  they  are  accepted  as  true  by  the  Russian 
journals  and  public. 

We  see,  then,  that  family  life  has  greatly  suffered 
not  only  in  the  upper  classes  of  Russian  society,  but  in 
even  a  higher  degree  in  the  broad  strata  of  the  lower 
classes.  In  Russia  woman  never  occupied  such  a  po- 
sition as  she  has  all  along  with  the  Germanic  races. 
This  is  a  Slavic  trait,  but  in  Russia  it  has  become  par- 
ticularly pronounced  owing  to  the  Mongolian  suzerainty 
which  lasted  for  centuries.  Woman,  in  fact,  occupied 
in  the  past  and  occupies  in  the  present  a  place  hardly 
better  than  in  Oriental  countries.  Popularly  she  is 
looked  upon  throughout  Russia  as  the  semi- slave  of 
man.  She  must  serve  him,  offer  the  cup  to  his  lips, 
wheedle  and  cajole  him,  and  be  thankful  alike  for  a 
blow  or  caress.  The  peasant  who  does  not  beat  his 
wife  is  supposed  to  have  no  affection  for  her.  All  this 
is  true,  even  in  this  year  1904,  not  alone  with  the  dregs 
of  the  population,  but  with  the  entire  peasant  class  and 
with  the  numerically  small  town  population  making 
up  the  middle  class.  The  Muscovite  merchant  still  be- 
lieves in  the  stick  as  a  means  of  chastising  the  wife  of 
his  bosom.  That  the  higher  classes  in  Russia,  brought 
under  the  influence  of  Western  notions  since  the  days 


202  Russia 

of  Peter  the  Great,  have  got  over  this  national  estimate 
of  woman,  plays  practically  no  figure  in  a  country 
where  they  form  at  most  one-half  per  cent,  of  the  total 
population. 

Studying  at  first  hand,  so  far  as  circumstances  per- 
mit, the  relations  of  the  sexes  among  the  Russian  peas- 
antry, several  facts  become  at  once  noticeable.  Wives 
and  daughters  are  accustomed  to  be  viewed,  primarily, 
as  slaves,  toilers,  and  as  such  they  endure  brutal  treat- 
ment, disregard  of  their  feelings,  without  complaint. 
Wifehood  and  motherhood  are  considered  small  things 
by  the  men,  and  connubial  duty  is  held  to  consist  much 
more  in  serving,  even  every  whim  of  the  husband,  than 
in  fidelity  to  the  marriage  vow.  Morals,  in  fact,  have 
come  down  to  a  very  low  level  since  the  days  of  eman- 
cipation, and  breaches  of  marital  faith  are  not,  as  a  rule, 
regarded  in  a  serious  light.  This  state  of  demoralisa- 
tion is  very  largely  due  to  the  new  conditions  of  peasant 
life  that  have  grown  up  under  freedom.  The  men  and 
the  larger  boys  wander  off"  in  the  summer  to  look  for 
work  elsewhere,  leaving  their  wives  and  daughters  to 
till  the  little  field.  The  wives  meanwhile  take  into  the 
house  as  nominal  boarders  soldiers  off"  on  leave  of  ab- 
sence, tramps,  or  any  other  male  flotsam  that  happens 
to  come  their  way.  The  frightful  increase  in  the  num- 
ber of  illegitimate  children  in  the  rural  districts  is, 
therefore,  not  to  be  wondered  at.  Russian  statistics  say 
that  in  several  provinces,  such  as  Tver  and  Kostroma, 
illegitimate  births  form  now  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  total. 


Church  and  Morals  203 

Another  source  of  immorality  is  found  in  the  fact 
that  during  harvest  time,  when  good  wages  can  be  had, 
many  thousands  of  such  wives  and  daughters,  bereft 
for  months  of  the  control  and  protection  of  husbands 
and  fathers,  go  off  in  crowds  of  hundreds  to  large  es- 
tates in  the  vicinity  of  their  home  village,  working 
there  for  from  three  to  six  weeks.  The  accommoda- 
tions provided  for  them,  such  as  loosely  constructed 
barracks,  haylofts,  barns,  or  stables,  in  the  very  nature 
of  things,  further  promiscuous  intercourse,  and  the  en- 
tire absence  of  restraint  does  the  rest.  Estate  owners 
do  not  even  attempt  to  check-  this  evil.  In  fact,  they 
rather  encourage  it,  for  it  tends  to  keep  their  workers, 
male  and  female,  in  good  humour  and  to  prevent  them 
from  going  off  to  another  estate. 

"What  do  I  care  about  this?"  said  the  wealthy 
owner  of  one  of  these  estates,  on  being  interrogated 
about  these  conditions.  "  By  September  they  have  all 
fled,  and  husbands  are  never  the  wiser  on  their  return 
home.  Indeed,  the  husbands  are  not  a  bit  better,  no 
matter  where  they  happen  to  be.  And  as  for  me,  I 
save  a  lot  of  trouble  and  annoyance  by  not  interfering. 
The  main  thing  is,  my  crop  is  put  away  in  safety." 

There  are  questions  connected  with  the  conditions 
here  merely  hinted  at,  questions  of  so  delicate  a  nature 
as  to  forbid  their  discussion  in  this  book,  yet  which  are 
of  utmost  importance  to  the  hygiene  and  morals  of  the 
whole  nation.  The  very  general  spread  of  certain  dis- 
eases among  the  Russian  peasantry  of  to-day  is  among 


204  Russia 

these.  They  and  the  large  consumption  of  potato 
brandy,  containing  a  lot  of  fusel  oil,  have  greatly  di- 
minished the  health  and  sturdy  vitalitj^  of  these  classes. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  Russian  national  economy, 
these  evils  are  of  the  first  magnitude. 

Still  worse  from  a  certain  aspect  is  the  loosening  of 
parental  ties.  Maternity  has  become  a  growing  burden 
under  new  conditions  of  life.  Of  course,  the  fearful 
ignorance  of  peasant  fathers  and  mothers,  the  unsani- 
tary state  of  their  dwellings,  and  the  insufficient  nour- 
ishment during  a  great  part  of  the  year,  together  have 
much  to  do  with  the  enormous  child  mortality  in  rural 
Russia.  But  it  may  be  doubted  whether  all  the  above 
factors  together  play  so  important  a  role  in  the  ever- 
increasing  death-rate  among  the  babies,  as  does  the 
diminishing  of  maternal  affection  and  duty.  The  new- 
born is  treated  from  the  first  day  on  as  a  curse,  not  as  a 
blessing,  and  the  mother  scarcely  devotes  enough  atten- 
tion to  her  offspring  to  keep  it  alive.  The  infant  is 
placed  in  a  box,  leaving  the  face  open,  and  this  is  sus- 
pended by  a  hook  from  the  ceiling.  Mother  or  brother, 
perhaps  an  elder  sister,  is  seated  near  this  box,  attend- 
ing to  some  household  task  or  domestic  labour,  and 
with  the  foot  the  box  is  kept  swinging,  and  if  the  little 
thing  persists  in  wailing  or  restlessness,  it  is  given  a 
dose  of  a  decoction  to  be  found  in  every  Russian  izba. 
This  is  nothing  else  than  crude  opium,  obtained  from 
the  exuding  juice  of  the  poppy.  The  infant  is  reared 
in  pestilential  air  and  fed  on  the  most  unwholesome 


Church  and  Morals  205 

nourishment.  If  nature  has  not  given  it  an  iron  con- 
stitution, it  will  surely  die  under  such  conditions.  Con- 
siderably over  one-half  of  all  the  peasant  children  born 
in  Central  Russia  die  at  an  early  age,  and  that  accounts 
for  the  stationary  population  there.  An  unusually  re- 
pulsive feature  in  all  this,  however,  is  the  lack  of 
mother  love.  Occasionally,  it  is  true,  a  burst  of  ten- 
derness overcomes  her;  then  the  mother  will  shower 
caresses  and  sweet  words  of  endearment  on  her  child, 
but  the  next  instant  this  mood  is  gone,  and  she  will 
maltreat  it  most  cruelly,  curse  it,  and  say:  "If  God  and 
the  saints  would  only  take  it  away!  We  have  no  use 
for  it;  it  cannot  even  work,  and  is  good  for  nothing. 
Poor  people  cannot  afford  to  have  children." 

And  thus  the  child  dies,  and  it  is  hurriedly  put  away 
in  the  ground,  and  the  pope  makes  a  cross  over  it,  and 
the  mother  returns  to  her  hovel,  well  satisfied.  The 
relaxation  of  the  maternal  instinct  in  the  Russian 
peasant  classes  is  indeed  a  baneful  sign  in  the  down- 
ward scale  of  morality.  It  is  a  sign  of  more  portent 
even  than  that  of  the  loosening  of  the  marital  ties,  for 
it  saps  at  the  very  root  of  national  life. 

A  good  share  of  the  blame  for  the  growth  of  such 
conditions  must  be  placed  on  the  shoulders  of  the  Or- 
thodox clergy.  Perhaps  no  other  people  in  Europe 
require  as  much  as  do  the  Russians  to  be  kept  in  the 
straight  and  narrow  path  by  constant  precept  and  ex- 
ample. Yet  we  have  seen  that  this  duty  is  shirked  by 
the  Orthodox  Church,  and  that  its  exercise  even  is 


2o6  Russia 

strongly  discouraged  by  the  Holy  Synod  and  by  the 
whole  government.  Where  formalism  rules  and  takes 
the  place  of  living  Christianity,  the  fruits  cannot  be 
otherwise  than  they  are.  This  fact  is  instinctively  re- 
cognised by  nearly  all  Russians  belonging  to  the  Ortho- 
dox Church.  It  is  due  to  this  dim  conception  of  a  deep 
truth  that  the  word  ' '  sectarian  ' '  in  Russia  is  synony- 
mous with  a  man  of  a  higher  type.  And,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  Russian  sectarian  of  whatever  kind  is  mor- 
ally purer  and  shows  a  stronger  character  than  the  ad- 
herent of  the  State  Church.  He  does  not  drink  nor 
smoke,  and  he  is  more  economical,  more  diligent,  and 
more  orderly. 

How  comes  that?  It  cannot  be  the  difference  in 
dogma  alone,  for  the  great  mass  of  those  Russians  out- 
side the  State  Church  is  made  up  of  believers  in  the  Old 
Faith,  such  as  the  Orthodox  Church  of  to-day  was  be- 
fore the  reform  in  the  seventeenth  century.  These  men 
of  the  Old  Faith  are  in  their  tenets  not  perceptibly 
differentiated  from  the  others,  and  they  even  cling  to 
form  and  ritual  observances  more  rigidly  than  do  the 
members  of  the  Orthodox  Church.  It  is  true  that 
these  adherents  of  the  Old  Faith  are  not  habitually 
classed  with  the  sectarians,  but  they  show  to  quite  a 
degree  the  same  characteristics  that  distinguish  the 
latter.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the  distinction  lies 
not  so  much  in  what  is  believed  as  in  how  it  is  believed. 
In  the  one  case  the  same  dogmas  are  observed  by  com- 
pulsion, and  produce  no  moral  benefit;   in  the  other 


Church  and  Morals  207 

they  are  believed  in  as  a  matter  of  free  choice,  as  a 
spiritual  privilege,  and  by  the  sacrifices  brought  for 
such  a  creed  it  becomes  a  living  reality  and  a  moral 
force.  Besides,  the  people  of  the  Old  Faith,  being  per- 
secuted, draw  much  closer  one  to  the  other.  They  help 
and  protect  each  other,  and  therewith  the  moral  ele- 
ment becomes  more  pronounced,  exerting  a  purifying 
influence  not  only  in  church  and  congregation,  but  also 
in  the  family.  In  any  case  the  fact  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  the  Old  Faith  Russian  stands  morally  on  a  higher 
plane  than  the  Orthodox,  and  in  this  way  he  has  also 
attained  to  a  greater  measure  of  material  well-being. 
But  the  Russian  sects,  properly  so-called,  have  some- 
thing additional  to  elevate  them.  There  is  a  greater 
infusion  of  real  religion  in  their  various  creeds,  and 
thus  the  transmutation  of  their  moral  character  has 
been  greater.  For  example,  during  the  reign  of  Alex- 
ander!., Prince  Galitzyn,  his  premier,  called  into  Rus- 
sia the  British  Bible  Society,  and  furthered  its  objects. 
The  Bible  was  translated  into  Russian,  whereas  up  to 
that  time  it  had  only  existed  in  the  Old  Slavonic 
tongue,  the  one  still  used  in  the  Orthodox  Church  and 
almost  quite  unintelligible  to  the  low-class  Russian. 
For  many  years  after  that,  though,  this  new  Russian 
Bible  did  not  produce  much  effect,  and  this  for  the  sim- 
ple reason  that  the  great  mass  of  the  people  had  not  yet 
been  taught  to  read.  After  the  emancipation,  in  1861, 
with  the  establishment  of  many  schools,  a  knowledge 
of   the  Scriptures  extended   rapidly.     The  low-class 


2o8  Russia 

Russian  in,  many  cases  used  tlie  Bible  instead  of  a 
primer  when  learning  to  read.  The  Bible  to-day  has 
become  a  great  living  force  among  a  relatively  large 
percentage  of  the  ignorant  classes.  Its  influence  has 
been  and  is  far  more  powerful  among  the  peasantry 
than  the  Nihilists  and  other  political  reformers  and 
agitators  ever  were  or  could  be.  If  the  Holy  Synod 
wants  to  perpetuate  for  ever  the  spiritual  bondage  of  the 
Russian  peasantry,  the  Bible  must  be  tabooed  and  a 
stop  put  to  the  further  spread  of  its  teachings. 

The  genesis  of  that  large  sect  in  Russia  known  as 
the  Stundists  (the  word  being  derived  from  the  Ger- 
man Stunde,  i.  <?.,  hour  of  prayer),  is  well  known. 
They  grew  out  of  the  living  example  given  their  Rus- 
sian neighbours  by  the  German  Mennonites,  strict 
Protestants  and  very  careful  in  their  walk  of  life.  The 
Mennonites  existed  in  large  colonies  in  Russia,  both  in 
the  South  and  South-west  and  in  the  steppes  beyond 
the  Volga.  They  never  tried  to  make  prosel3'tes 
among  the  Russians  proper;  it  was  merely  the  living 
force  of  example  by  which  they  taught.  To-day  it  is 
estimated  that  the  number  of  Stundists  in  Russia  is  be- 
tween seven  and  eight  millions. 

The  religious  sense  of  the  Russian,  brooding  for  cen- 
turies on  empty  formula  and  feeling  an  aching  void, 
quickly  seized  upon  the  liberating  power  of  a  simple 
and  practical  creed,  and  the  Stundist  movement  flew 
through  the  whole  South  of  the  country.  It  is  touch- 
ing to  see  these  simple  peasants  trying  to  escape  from 


Church  and  Morals  209 

their  spiritual  wilderness.  Wherever  the  Bible  in  a 
Russian  translation  has  found  its  way  into  a  village, 
soon  a  circle  of  peasants  is  formed,  some  of  them  able  to 
read  and  therefore  to  follow  the  reader,  others  ignorant 
of  the  art  of  reading  but  intense  listeners ;  and  all 
dating  a  moral  regeneration  from  the  hour  they  first 
made  acquaintance  with  that  wonderful  book  from  a 
knowledge  of  which  they  had  been  shut  out  by  their 
own  priests  and  Church. 

Next  to  the  Stundists  other  sects  have  arisen,  all  of 
them  growing  out  of  Protestant  soil,  and  more  or  less  in- 
fluenced in  their  creed  by  it.  Such,  for  instance,  are 
the  Molokhans  and  Dukhoborzis.  The  latter,  it  is 
known,  have  for  years  encountered  the  most  violent 
persecution  on  the  part  of  the  government.  Many, 
many  thousands  of  Dukhoborzis,  sometimes  whole  vil- 
lagefuls  of  them,  were  sent  to  the  most  inclement  parts 
of  Siberia.  Count  Leo  Tolstoi,  as  is  well  known,  has 
taken  especial  interest  in  this  sect,  possibly  for  the 
reason  that  in  some  of  their  teachings  and  practices 
they  have  been  guided  by  his  own  tuition. 

One  Russian  sect  specially  deserving  of  mention  is 

that  founded  by  the  late  M.  Pashkoff,  a  colonel  in  the 

Imperial  Guards  and  a  man  of  great  wealth  and  very 

distinguished    family.     This  sect,   curiously   enough, 

took  its  rise  in  St.  Petersburg  during  the  eighties,  and 

found  its  first  numerous  adherents  among  the  nobility 

and  in  court  circles.     PashkoS  had  imbibed  during  a 

visit  to  England  some  of  the  Methodist  spirit,  and  for 
14 


2IO  Russia 

the  first  time  becoming  acquainted  with  the  Gospels 
and  with  practical  Christianity,  on  his  return  he  dis- 
missed all  thought  of  earthly  advantage  and  turned  his 
thoughts,  his  whole  life,  and  his  vast  fortune  in  the 
direction  of  converting  his  countrymen  to  the  new 
truths  he  had  espoused. 

Intellectually  Pashkofif  was  not  above  mediocrity; 
but  his  heart  and  his  imagination  had  been  powerfully 
stirred  by  his  conversion,  and  with  the  enthusiasm  that 
glowed  in  his  own  soul  he  enkindled  the  slumbering 
fires  of  religious  sentiment  in  all  those  with  whom  he 
came  in  contact.  In  his  palace  on  the  Nevski  Pro- 
spect in  St.  Petersburg  he  assembled  daily  hundreds  of 
persons  from  among  his  large  circle  of  acquaintances, 
many  of  them  from  among  the  immediate  entourage  of 
the  Czar.  But  this  not  alone.  He  called  in  from  the 
streets  into  his  parlours  crowds  of  men  and  women  of 
the  lower  classes — drivers  and  porters,  peddlers  and 
street  vendors,  washerwomen  and  hucksters,  and  to  all 
of  them  he  carried  the  glad  message  which  he  himself 
had  received.  Soon  there  was  not  a  street  sweeper  in 
the  whole  of  St.  Petersburg  who  did  not  know  Pash- 
koff,  and  he  carried  on  his  evangelistic  labours,  always 
unscathed,  in  the  very  slums  of  the  huge  city.  Thou- 
sands blessed  him,  to  whom  he  had  been  an  apostle  and 
a  benefactor,  and  with  his  millions  and  the  great  funds 
he  collected  from  among  his  adherents  belonging  to  the 
wealthy  and  privileged  classes,  he  founded  charitable  in- 
stitutions of  every  description.     Of  course,  there  came 


Church  and  Morals  211 

a  day  when  the  Holy  Synod  scented  danger  in  all  this. 
Pashkoflf  was  banished,  his  institutions  were  destroyed, 
a  large  part  of  his  estates  confiscated,  and  the  man 
himself  died  two  years  ago,  in  Paris,  in  obscurity. 

As  with  Pashkofif,  so  it  was  with  many  thousands  in 
Russia  when  they  first  were  permitted  to  read  the  Bible, 
From  village  to  village  flew  the  spark  of  religious  senti- 
ment, and  it  set  afire  many  hearts  that  had  been  sigh- 
ing under  the  iron  heel  of  the  Holy  Synod. 

And  this  is  not  astonishing;  the  people  themselves 
saw  that  the  sectarians  of  every  description  were  su- 
perior to  them  in  works  as  well  as  words.  lyiving 
Christianity  had  not  been  brought  into  the  country  by 
St.  Vladimir  and  his  Byzantine  priests,  and  the  Rus- 
sian, therefore,  taking  the  nation  as  a  whole,  has  never 
become  acquainted  with  the  essence  and  spirit  of  Christ- 
ianity. Where  these  to-day  penetrate  the  land,  to- 
gether with  the  Bible,  the  effect  must  be  deep  and 
almost  instantaneous.  The  effect,  indeed,  is  one  which 
even  the  strongest  government  could  never  attain  by 
purely  worldly  means.  But  the  effect  runs  counter  to 
the  State  Church,  and  leads  to  a  renunciation  of  Ortho- 
dox tenets.  For  that  reason  the  government  has  en- 
gaged in  systematic  warfare  against  sectarianism. 

The  severity  with  which  this  warfare  has  been  waged 
for  twenty  years  and  more  past  is  beyond  words.  Com- 
pulsory transmigration  of  Molokhans  and  Dukhoborzis 
to  the  arid  wastes  beyond  the  Caspian  Sea,  leaving 
them  to  starvation  and  with  scarcely  any  means,  has 


212  Russia 

been  about  the  mildest  form  of  persecution.  Had  it 
not  been  for  English  charity,  for  collections  gathered 
under  the  auspices  of  Tolstoi  and  other  humanitarians, 
many  more  thousands  would  have  succumbed  to  priva- 
tions. By  the  thousands  they  were  sent,  under  the 
escort  of  savage  Cossacks,  prodding  them  with  their 
pikes  and  lances  when  they  fell  down  by  the  roadside 
from  sheer  exhaustion,  toiling  their  weary  way  on  foot 
for  thousands  of  miles,  to  their  final  destination  in  the 
most  inhospitable  regions  of  the  empire.  Other  thou- 
sands were  sent  into  the  murderous  mines  at  Tobolsk 
and  its  vicinity,  and  perished  in  that  way,  while  still 
others  were  impressed  into  the  army.  All  this  for  the 
greater  glory  and  security  of  a  so-called  Christian 
Church,  under  the  behests  of  a  body  which  takes  to 
itself  the  name  of  Holy  Synod. 

Despite  all  this,  sectarianism  is  spreading  and  honey- 
combing the  whole  of  Russia.  It  is  believed  that  the 
total  number  of  such  sectarians  cannot  fall  short  of 
twenty-five  to  thirty  millions;  the  last  official  census 
gives  the  number  of  adherents  of  the  Orthodox  Church 
in  European  Russia  at  86^  millions  out  of  a  total  of 
no.  The  men  and  women  belonging  to  the  Old  Faith 
are,  however,  in  these  lists  classed  with  the  regular 
Orthodox  Church. 

Of  all  the  factors  making  for  evil  in  Russia  this  one 
of  shackling  the  masses  in  spiritual  bondage,  hindering 
by  cruel  means  every  attempt  to  reach  the  living  waters 
of  faith,  is  perhaps  the  most  far-reaching  as  it  is  un- 


Church  and  Morals  213 

questionably  the  most  fiendish.  Next  to  the  abolish- 
ment of  the  suicidal  communal  system  in  the  country, 
and  to  the  establishment  of  provincial  autonomy,  must 
stand  the  spiritual  emancipation  of  the  masses  in  the 
programme  of  all  patriotic  Russians  who  wish  their 
country  to  grow  sane  and  sound  once  more. 

The  Russia  of  to-day  reminds  one  of  a  vast  morass. 
From  its  swampy  soil  rise  unwholesome  vapours. 
There  is  a  mollusc-like  flabbiness  in  the  Russian 
masses,  which  prevents  them  from  interposing  a  manly 
resistance  to  vice  and  crime.  With  nothing  to  stop 
them,  almost  without  a  will  of  their  own,  thousands  of 
Russians  are  reeling  towards  evil.  It  is  not  passion 
that  drives  them  to  become  the  victims  of  fate.  It  is 
not  fear  of  punishment  that  keeps  them  back.  They 
are  not  wicked  by  nature,  but  they  allow  themselves  to 
drift.  They  are  without  moral  education  and  without 
the  barriers  of  character.  They  follow  limply  their 
own  uncontrolled  desires,  just  as  children  would.  And 
with  all  that,  though  children,  they  are  gifted  and 
capable  of  noble  deeds.  While  they  bow  to  the  ground 
before  the  noble  and  powerful,  yet  they  will  rise  from 
the  ground  and  face  their  superiors  as  equals. 

There  is  indeed  a  strange  mixture  of  good  and  evil, 
of  fine  and  despicable  qualities  in  the  Russian  peasant: 
he  allows  himself  to  be  tortured  to  death,  without  a 
murmur;  he  endures  everything;  physically,  intel- 
lectually, and  morally  he  shows  admirable  powers  of 
endurance,    and   yet   one   is   often   astonished   at   the 


214  Russia 

unconscious  dignity  of  these  poor  semi-savages,  and 
one  will  find  in  them  occasionally  an  amazing  moral 
grandeur.  But  it  seems  almost  as  if  the  sinews  of  the 
peasant's  active  forces  had  been  severed:  the  individual 
character  is  lacking,  the  will-power,  the  personality  of 
homogeneous  make.  The  dictum  of  his  commune,  the 
order  of  his  authorities,  and  the  will  of  the  Czar:  out- 
side of  these  three  forces  there  is  not  living  in  his  breast 
a  clear  consciousness  of  self-will.  Is  he  still  capable  of 
development  ?  Or  is  he  the  son  of  a  nation  without  a 
future  ? 


CHAPTER  IX 

SLOW  GROWTH  OF  A  MIDDLE  CLASS 

The  Muscovite  Rulers  of  the  Late  Middle  Ages  Destroyed  the 
Civic  Spirit  and  Broke  the  Freedom  and  Privileges  of  the 
Ancient  Towns — Why  the  Free  Cossack  Settlements  Never 
Became  Organised  Commonwealths — The  Growth  of  a  New 
Middle  Class  Dates  Back  but  Ten  Years — Urban  Population 
Concentrating  in  the  Few  Large  Cities — Small  Municipal 
Budgets,  Rendering  Modern  Improvements  Impossible — 
Decline  of  the  Old  Provincial  Centres  and  Reasons  There- 
for— Russia's  Deficient  System  of  Public  Education — The 
Part  Played  Respectively  by  the  Government,  Provincial 
Administrations,  and  Communes — The  Question  of  Church 
Schools — Russian  Teachers  as  a  Body:  Their  Salaries,  Pro- 
fessional Training,  and  Attainments— Religious  Intolerance 
Taught  Systematically  at  School— A  Few  Statistics  Show- 
ing the  Poor  Results  of  the  Present  System — The  Russian 
Student  and  his  Present  Frame  of  Mind— A  New  and  Im- 
portant Element :  Sons  of  the  Orthodox  Clergy — A  Few 
Notes  on  Russian  Literature 

IN  the  Muscovy  of  old  there  never  was  citizenship 
in  the  Anglo-Saxon  sense;  there  were  no  cities  or 
towns  with  independent  government  or  communal  au- 
tonomy, with  a  population  attending  to  commerce  and 
trade,  yet  of  warlike  qualities,  such  as  existed  every- 
where during  the  Middle  Ages  and  after  in  countries 
to  the  West.     Russians  are  fond  of  attributing  to  their 

215 


2i6  Russia 

Mongolian  conquerors,  who  ruled  them  for  centuries 
with  a  rod  of  iron,  all  the  historic  ills  from  which  they 
suffer.  The  truth  is  that,  as  for  so  many  other  evil 
things  in  the  Russia  of  to-day,  the  Slavic  princes  of 
Muscovy,  their  heirs  and  successors,  were  responsible 
for  the  non-development  of  civic  life  and  municipal  lib- 
erty. Before  their  time,  when  seventy-two  princes  and 
a  few  flourishing  municipal  republics  divided  the  terri- 
tory of  Russia  among  themselves,  there  did  exist  towns 
and  cities  which  were  governed  very  much  as  those  in 
the  Italy  and  Germany  of  those  days.  These  centres 
of  population  at  that  time  grew  and  prospered  in  every 
sense,  and  lively  commercial  and  intellectual  relations 
were  entertained  between  them  and  western  countries. 
It  is  well  known  that  two  of  these  ancient  towns, 
namely,  Nishni-Novgorod  and  Pskov,  were  for  several 
centuries  fully  as  free  as  were  Florence  or  Genoa,  Lu- 
beck  or  Bremen,  and  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  be- 
longed for  a  long  time  to  the  Hanseatic  League. 

When  Muscovy  rose  to  supreme  power,  its  rulers — 
autocrats  and  tyrants — broke  all  this  down.  They  de- 
stro3'^ed  the  civic  republics  with  their  citizenship  framed 
according  to  Western  notions.  Kquality,  but  the 
equality  of  slavery,  was  instituted  and  enforced. 
Thus  within  a  short  time  the  slow  growth  towards 
wealth  and  light  of  civilisation  was  utterly  uprooted. 
What  had  taken  five  hundred  years  to  develop  organ- 
ically, was  now  razed  to  the  ground  by  the  ruthless 
hand  of  Muscovy.     Thus,  the  fruits  and  germs  of  cul- 


Slow  Growth  of  a  Middle  Class    217 

ture  were  killed  in  the  whole  country,  and  in  place  of 
them  rose  slowly  the  foundations  of  that  gigantic  struc- 
ture, imposing  in  size  and  outward  power,  yet  resting 
on  rotten  pillars,  which  we  see  to-day. 

Aside  from  that,  however,  there  were  other  causes 
rendering  difficult  the  growth  of  a  middle  class.  Arable 
land  there  was  in  plenty,  and  the  peasant,  so  long  as  he 
was  free,  was  not  compelled,  as  he  had  been  in  Western 
countries,  to  seek  profitable  labour  and  protection  from 
robber  knights  in  walled  towns.  Then  came  Ivan  the 
Terrible  and  those  who  followed  in  his  wake  in  Old 
Muscovy,  and  the  peasant  was  made  a  serf,  tied  to  his 
natal  clod.  And  that,  of  course,  made  thereafter  im- 
possible the  growth  of  municipal  life.  Wherever  and 
whenever  the  peasant  felt  too  hard  the  despotic  pressure 
of  the  lord  of  the  soil  which  he  tilled,  he  fled  to  the 
steppe,  down  South  to  the  Free  Cossacks  on  the  Don 
and  the  Dniepr,  and  joined  there  a  savage  life  devoid 
of  care.  Or  else  he  founded  agricultural  colonies  in 
the  unsettled  parts  of  the  country,  on  the  Kirghiz 
steppe  along  the  Volga  or  beyond  it.  For  generations 
he  was  left  there  undisturbed,  achieving  a  modest 
measure  of  prosperity. 

These  are  the  main  reasons  for  the  almost  total  lack 
of  a  Russian  middle  class  during  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  and  up  to  about  forty  years  ago. 
The  numerically  very  small  middle  class  we  do  find 
in  the  Russia  of  those  days  was  almost  entirely  foreign, 
ever  since  the  days  of  Peter  the  Great.     They  were 


2i8  Russia 

from  the  border  provinces  of  Russia,  especially  Baltic 
Germans,  with  an  intermingling  of  Dutch,  English, 
Swiss,  Armenians,  Tartars,  and  some  Poles. 

All  beginnings  of  civic  life  in  Old  Russia  were  due  to 
foreign  elements,  chiefly  Germanic  in  the  North  and 
West,  and  Turkish  and  Tartar  in  the  East.  But  they 
were  not  destined  to  grow  under  Muscovy's  despotic 
yoke.  The  one-man  power  in  Moscow  suppressed 
them. 

With  a  people  of  another  stripe  the  Cossack  settle- 
ments in  the  South  and  South-west,  later  on  also  in  the 
South-east,  might  have  been  instrumental  in  developing 
a  Russian  middle  class.  Outwardly  at  least  circum- 
stances were  very  favourable  to  such  a  development. 
And  for  many  generations  the  spirit  of  liberty  dwelt 
strong  in  the  bosom  of  the  Free  Cossacks.  But,  after 
all,  the  Cossack  himself  was  a  Russian,  and  with  his 
national  bent  could  never  become  a  peaceful  and  hard- 
working dweller  in  prosperous  towns,  requiring  innate 
sense  of  order  and  system.  And  we  have  seen  that  the 
Cossack  settlements  after  a  while  were  incorporated, 
more  or  less  completel}',  in  the  body  politic  of  Russia 
proper.  Therefore  it  was  that  the  Cossack  ssetche  (fort- 
ified camps  in  which  the  unmarried  Cossacks  dwelt) 
never  grew  beyond  this  crude  stage.  Although  their 
het7nan  (ruler)  was  freely  chosen  by  all  adult  Cossacks, 
he  never  attempted  to  lead  his  men  in  peace  as  he  did 
in  war.  The  Cossack  republics  were  not  much  better 
than  the  so-called  Republic  of  Poland. 


Slow  Growth  of  a  Middle  Class    219 

It  is  only  during  the  last  ten  years  that  the  Russian 
urban  population  has  been  rapidly  increasing.  This 
was  due  to  Witte's  industrial  policy.  The  industrial 
labour, element  in  the  towns  is  now  said  to  exceed  two 
millions.  The  number  of  technically  schooled  work- 
men and  mechanics  is  growing,  and  commerce  employs 
a  steadily  rising  number,  while  also  the  members  of  the 
learned  professions  are  becoming  more  numerous  and 
of  more  importance.  A  wholesome  vivifying  of  the 
small  middle  class  has  been  taking  place,  a  fact  made 
palpable  by  the  strong  pressure  to  enter  technical  and 
commercial  schools,  as  well  as  the  universities,  semi- 
naries, and  other  preparatory  institutions. 

Unfortunately,  the  increase  in  the  urban  population 
is  by  no  means  uniform.  Everybody  is  crowding  into 
the  few  centres  of  industry  and  commerce.  Chief 
among  these  are  Moscow  and  Vladimir;  outside  of 
these  two  cities  and  their  surrounding  districts  nearly 
the  only  cities  that  show  a  rapid  growth  are  located  on 
the  borders  of  the  empire  to  the  west.  The  cause  of 
this  is  that  interior  trade  has  greatly  declined  in  favour 
of  export  trade  since  the  completion  of  the  railroads. 
With  the  exception  of  the  Moscow  district  the  young 
Russian  industry  is  concentrating  in  the  outlying  pro- 
vinces, partly  because  of  the  ease  with  which  capital  is 
found  there,  but  also  because  of  the  greater  facilities  of 
obtaining  there  from  the  neighbouring  countries  tech- 
nically schooled  foremen  and  labourers,  half-finished 
industrial    products,    and    rawstuffs    and  machinery. 


220  Russia 

while  the  cheaper  coal  and  the  saving  in  freight  like- 
wise play  a  part  in  the  process. 

In  this  way  it  has  come  about  that  commerce  and 
industry  are  centred  in  the  frontier  districts:  In  St. 
Petersburg,  Reval,  Riga,  lyibau,  Warsaw,  Lodz, 
Odessa,  Kieflf,  Rostoff,  Baku,  etc.,  as  well  as  in  Mos- 
cow and  Vladimir,  of  course.  St.  Petersburg  and  Mos- 
cow have  each  a  population  of  about  1,200,000  to-day, 
Warsaw  of  700,000,  Riga  of  about  250,000,  and  Odessa 
and  lyodz  about  200,000  each.  Altogether  there  are  in 
the  Russia  of  to-day  some  seventy-four  towns  and  cities 
of  over  30,000  population,  and  sixteen  of  them  of  over 
100,000.  That,  it  will  be  admitted,  is  very  little  for  an 
empire  holding  130,000,000  people.  Of  the  sixteen 
large  towns  but  two  are  situated  in  the  interior  of 
Russia.  A  Russian  statistician,  Trubnikoflf,  mentions 
in  his  writings  altogether  709  towns  in  Russia  proper 
(excluding  Poland,  the  Caucasus,  and  Turkestan),  and 
their  combined  revenues  and  budgets  at  a  total  of  sixtj'- 
seven  million  roubles  annually.  This  would  mean  an 
average  annual  revenue  of  only  94,500  roubles.  But 
deducting  the  budgets  of  the  few  large  towns  what  is 
left  for  the  smaller  ones  is  very  little.  For  instance, 
St.  Petersburg  to-day  has  a  budget  of  seventeen  mill- 
ion roubles.  Moscow  has  one  of  twelve  millions,  and 
if  we  count  in  Warsaw,  Odessa,  and  Riga  more  than 
one-half  of  this  entire  sixty -seven  millions  is  swallowed 
up  by  just  a  few  of  the  709  towns.  Anyway,  sixty- 
seven  million  roubles  is  less  by  fifty  per  cent,  than  the 


Slow  Growth  of  a  Middle  Class    221 

budget  of  Berlin  alone,  while  Paris,  London,  and  New 
York  show  budgets  overtopping  the  entire  municipal 
budgets  of  Russia  by  from  one  hundred  to  two  hundred 
per  cent.  The  total  urban  population  of  Russia  to-day 
is  counted  at  16,289,000,  or  about  thirteen  per  cent,  of 
the  total  population. 

But  there  is  more  to  be  said  on  this  score.  The  cities 
and  towns  in  the  interior  are  stationary  or  decreasing  in 
population.  Such  old  and  formerly  important  centres  as 
Tver,  Pskov,  Nishni-Novgorod,  Tula,  and  many  others 
have  declined  within  the  past  ten  years  by  from  twenty 
to  forty  per  cent.  One  of  the  most  important  Russian 
newspapers,  the  Novoe  Vremya,  a  short  time  ago  furn- 
ished quite  complete  and  interesting  data  on  this  sub- 
ject. It  mentioned  that  the  ancient  town  of  Ouglitch, 
once  capital  of  an  independent  realm,  has  come  down 
to  a  beggarly  nine  thousand  of  population. 

The  same  Russian  newspaper  in  this  connection  in- 
dulges in  saddening  reflections.  It  describes  the  intel- 
lectual level  of  the  provincial  and  district  capitals  as 
being  extremely  low.  School  facilities  are  stated  to  be 
deplorably  deficient.  In  the  matter  of  postal  communi- 
cation they  are,  if  anything,  in  a  worse  plight.  Then 
it  goes  on: 

No  libraries,  no  theatres,  no  reading-balls  !  And  if  on  the 
initiative  of  a  teacher  or  other  intellectual  leader  a  lecture  is 
given,  with  or  without  magic  lantern,  it  takes  place  in  the 
roomiest  building  of  the  town,  namely,  the  jail.  Such  a  lecture 
is  considered  a  great  social  event,  and  the  local  paper  devotes 
columns  to  it.     In  many  of  these  towns  there  is  not  even  a 


222  Russia 

club,  and  if  so  it  is  more  a  place  for  the  members  to  indulge 
without  restraint  in  their  drinking  propensities  than  anything 
else.  A  social  life  in  our  sense  does  not  exist.  .  .  .  Decay 
is  noticeable  at  every  step  :  The  streets  are  rank  with  grass,  the 
fences  tumbling  to  pieces,  and  the  small  houses  and  hovels 
of  the  dealers  and  shop-keepers  are  half  in  ruins,  with  broken 
panes,  while  everywhere  a  total  lack  of  enterprise  and  of  finan- 
cial means  is  noticeable.  Commerce  and  municipal  revenues 
are  in  a  hopeless  condition. 

As  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  these  melancholy  condi- 
tions the  Novoe  Vremya  mentions  the  railroads.  These 
have  passed  by  by  far  the  larger  number  of  the  old 
towns,  sometimes  at  a  distance  of  a  hundred  miles  and 
more.  True,  the  railroads  have  also  created  new  settle- 
ments along  their  tracks,  but  these  are  as  yet  in  process 
of  formation  and  of  small  importance. 

And  then  the  discouraging  municipal  policy  of  the 
government.  The  towns  are  overloaded  with  indus- 
trial taxes,  real  estate  taxes,  charges  for  the  quartering 
of  the  troops,  and  other  heavy  dues.  At  the  same  time 
one  source  of  revenue  after  another  is  deflected  for  the 
benefit  of  the  state.  Expenditures  for  police,  the  mili- 
tary, and  for  barracks  are  constantly  growing.  So  that 
even  the  large  and  fairly  prosperous  cities  are  in  an  un- 
healthy financial  condition  despite  their  growth,  and 
are  able  to  satisfy  their  pressing  wants  only  by  enlarg- 
ing the  load  of  their  debts.  The  smaller  towns  have 
not  even  credit  in  the  money  market,  and  are,  there- 
fore, powerless  to  make  improvements.  Then,  to  be 
sure,  the  decay  of  agriculture  weighs  heavily  on  the 
provincial  towns. 


Slow  Growth  of  a  Middle  Class    223 

The  great  majority  of  these  provincial  towns,  there- 
fore, are  dead.  They  do  not  produce  anything,  they 
have  no  industry,  and  even  commerce  has  largely 
passed  out  of  their  hands,  and  gone  to  the  few  large 
cities.  They  are  purely  passive  bodies,  the  meeting- 
places  of  the  nobility,  themselves  impoverished,  and 
the  enforced  abode  of  a  hive  of  underpaid  officials,  with 
a  number  of  small  shops  where  merely  the  most  ele- 
mentary needs  of  the  population  can  be  satisfied. 

The  great  artery  of  the  Volga  is  navigated  by  some 
six  hundred  steamers  and  thousands  of  barges,  but  how 
poor  and  miserable  are  the  few  cities  along  the  shores 
of  this  mighty  river!  Kasan,  Simbirsk,  Saratofif — 
towns  without  life,  desolate  streets,  inns  and  hostelries 
without  guests,  museums  without  objects  inside,  clubs 
without  social  life — that  is  the  picture  which  meets  the 
eye  of  the  traveller. 

It  is  different,  of  course,  in  the  few  large  cities. 
Here  is  concentrated  the  material  and  intellectual  life 
of  the  nation:  in  industry  and  commerce,  in  universi- 
ties and  preparatory  schools,  in  literature,  art,  and  press. 
All  this  brings  about  a  vitalising  effect.  And  in  them 
alone  one  feels  something  like  publicity,  public  life, 
and  progress. 

The  Russian  definition  of  "  intelligence"  varies  ac- 
cording to  the  definer.  All  the  adherents  of  the  old 
system,  and  their  name  is  million,  look  askance  at 
modern  education.  In  their  minds  they  associate  it 
with  that  importunate  Occident  which  to  them  has 


224  Russia 

been  a  thorn  in  the  flesh.  The  very  name  of  student 
has  lost  credit  with  the  masses  and  with  the  govern- 
ment since  the  futile  undertakings  of  a  more  or  less 
revolutionary  description  of  the  Nihilists.  However, 
the  intelligent  class  in  Russia  is  nevertheless  slowly  but 
constantly  increasing.  A  feeling  is  beginning  to  per- 
vade the  educated  classes  that,  after  all,  it  is  the 
student  of  university,  commercial  high  school,  and  tech- 
nical college  upon  whom  rests  the  future  development 
of  the  country.  This  feeling  has  become  more  pro- 
nounced since  the  recent  increase  in  the  autocratic  and 
bureaucratic  spirit. 

The  reform  of  Russia's  educational  system  is  one  of 
the  most  important  in  her  programme. 

During  1902  the  government  devoted  to  public  edu- 
cation of  every  grade  a  matter  of  74.8  million  roubles. 
Of  this  about  one-half  is  used  up  for  military  and  tech- 
nical colleges  and  for  the  universities.  To  the  share 
of  the  middle  schools  fell  only  10}^  millions,  and  about 
nine  millions  to  that  of  the  lower  schools.  It  is  es- 
timated that  the  government  spends  forty  kopeks  per 
head  of  population  for  public  education.  This  is  the 
figure  given  by  Prof  Skarshinski  in  the  European 
Messenger,  while  Witte  himself  figures  out  fifty-nine 
kopeks  per  head. 

Trubnikoflf  states  the  number  of  schools  of  every 
kind  in  Russia  at  78,699,  whereas  the  Moscow  Vyedo- 
mosti  places  the  number  at  79,934.  The  quality  of 
these  schools,  taking  them  as  a  whole,  has  been  declin- 


Slow  Growth  of  a  Middle  Class    225 

ing.  The  Russian  teacher  is  looked  upon  principally 
as  an  agent  of  his  government.  Scientifically  his  pre- 
paration is  superficial,  and  pedagogically  he  is  entirely 
unprepared.  There  are  exceptions,  of  course,  but  the 
above  is  the  rule.  Correct  political  principles  are 
looked  upon  by  the  appointing  power,  the  government, 
as  the  chief  requisite  in  a  teacher  of  the  young.  But 
we  see  another  curious  feature.  The  cream  of  the  Rus- 
sian teachers  and  professors  are  not  kept  at  home,  in 
Russia  proper;  they  are  sent,  so  to  speak,  to  enforce 
the  national  propaganda  in  the  border  provinces. 
There  they  are,  above  all,  teachers  of  the  Russian  lan- 
guage, of  Russian  thought  and  governmental  methods, 
and  everything  else  in  the  way  of  duty  comes  in  the 
second  place.  This  fact  is  very  noticeable  indeed  in 
the  Polish  provinces,  in  the  Caucasus,  and  along  the 
Baltic. 

Of  the  total  number  of  government  schools,  12,132 
are  under  the  administration  of  the  War  Department, 
and  these  schools  fill  a  real  national  need  in  imparting 
elementary  instruction  to  the  recruits  of  the  army.  The 
worst  part  of  Russia's  public  educational  system  is  that 
of  the  schools  of  middle  rank.  Kovalevski  counts  of 
them  191  g^annasia,  53  progymnasia,  and  115  com- 
mercial schools.  These  schools  together  receive  from 
the  government  a  matter  of  io}4  million  roubles, 
equivalent  to  8)^  kopeks  per  head.  For  all  the  public 
schools  (with  the  exception  of  the  universities  and 
technical   colleges)    the   central   government   expends 

IS 


226  Russia 

every  year  about  fifteen  kopeks  per  head,  or  one  per 
cent,  of  its  total  revenues.     Comment  is  superfluous. 

One  feature,  however,  must  not  be  overlooked.    The 
zemstva  (provincial  chambers)  since  1861  have  founded 
schools  with  provincial  funds,  and  in  very  many  cases 
induced  the  more  populous  and  well-to-do  villages  to 
do  the  same.     The  last  available  statistics  in  this  re- 
spect show  us  that  of  the  entire  cost  of  maintaining  the 
lower  public  schools  (which  means  almost  altogether 
schools   where  reading  and  writing   only  are  taught) 
some  sixty-nine  per  cent,  are  contributed  by  these  pro- 
vincial chambers,  twenty-nine  by  the  rural  communes, 
and  only  two  per  cent,  by  the  central  government. 
Progress  is  quite  noticeable.     In  those  provinces  pos- 
sessing provincial  chambers  the  expenditures  for  ele- 
mentary schools  have  risen  sixty-nine  per  cent,  during 
the  last  seven  years.     Unfortunately,  the  government 
by  the  law  of  June  12,   1900,  has  limited  the  increase 
of  the  revenues  of  these  chambers,  so  that  a  further 
swelling  of  expenditures  for  educational  purposes  is 
rendered  impossible. 

These  elementary  schools  since  1891  have  been 
turned  over  to  the  Orthodox  Church,  the  village  priests 
being  charged  with  the  duty  of  superintending  them. 
Of  the  total  number  of  58,490  elementary  schools, 
51,540  have  been  thus  placed  under  Church  superin- 
tendence. The  Church  also  conducts  with  means  of 
its  own  some  21,500  elementary  schools,  having  an 
average  attendance  of  i>^  million  children.     Besides, 


Slow  Growth  of  a  Middle  Class    227 

this  same  Orthodox  Church  has  under  its  guidance  and 
administration  18,341  schools  devoted  to  the  education 
of  priests;  this  class  of  schools  exists  in  two  subdivis- 
ions, higher  and  lower,  and  comprises  sixteen  semi- 
naries. The  teachers  employed  in  all  the  schools 
administered  by  the  Church  are  made  up  of  priests, 
diakons,  chanters,  but  in  their  majority  (about  thirty- 
seven  thousand)  of  laymen.  Salaries  paid  are  very 
low.  For  nineteen  thousand  teachers  the  annual  in- 
come is  less  than  one  hundred  roubles.  The  highest 
salaries,  averaging  five  hundred  roubles  yearly,  were 
paid  to  122,  all  of  them  teachers  or  professors  in  the 
seminaries,  etc.  To  this  category  of  teachers  applies 
again  a  former  remark:  the  best  of  them  and  those  re- 
ceiving the  highest  salaries  are  sent  to  the  non-Russian 
border  provinces,  largely  for  purposes  of  the  national 
propaganda.  Altogether  the  Orthodox  Church  in 
Russia  spends  a  round  eleven  millions  annually, 
whereof  five  million  roubles  come  out  of  the  national 
treasury. 

The  spirit  pervading  these  schools  under  the  domina- 
tion of  the  Orthodox  Church,  that  is,  the  Holy  Synod, 
is  best  illustrated  by  an  authentic  remark  of  its  Chief 
Procurator,  Pobyedonostsefi",  to  the  effect  that  "  educa- 
tion and  schooling  are  more  harmful  than  beneficial  for 
the  Russian  peasantry." 

One  of  the  main  topics  taught  in  the  higher-grade 
Church  schools  is  that  of  Russian  sectarianism,  par- 
ticularly Stundism.     Pupils  and  teachers  are  armed  out 


228  Russia 

of  an  arsenal  of  arguments  for  the  combating  of  sectar- 
ian tenets.  Religious  instruction  in  all  the  elementary 
schools  is  largely  of  a  polemical  character.  This  is 
particularly  the  case  in  the  eparchies  of  Poltava,  Khar- 
koff,  Voronesh,  Astrakhan,  and  Tamboff,  comprising 
those  portions  of  the  empire  where  sectarianism  is  most 
widespread.  In  the  case  of  children  barely  able  to  read 
and  write,  such  teaching  must  result  in  wholly  er- 
roneous ideas  respecting  the  purview  of  religion.  The 
children  are  also  trained  in  the  Old  Slavonic  church 
chant,  and  bands  of  choristers  are  formed  out  of  them. 
The  general  verdict  about  the  Church  schools  in  Russia 
must  be:  cheap  and  inefficient. 

A  knowledge  of  reading  is,  however,  spreading.  All 
sorts  of  persons  turn  temporary  or  permanent  school- 
masters. Many  a  corporal  or  sergeant,  having  served 
his  term  in  the  army  and  returned  to  his  native  village, 
makes  a  precarious  living  by  teaching  the  art  of  reading 
to  his  one-time  playmates.  Nevertheless,  the  census 
of  1897  (the  main  data  of  which  are  only  now  becom- 
ing available)  shows  still  an  amazing  amount  of  ignor- 
ance in  the  whole  of  Russia.  In  St.  Petersburg,  out  of 
1,242,815  Russian  subjects,  469,720  were  analphabets, 
or  37.4  of  the  total  population.  Of  the  290,000  recruits 
yearly  joining  the  army,  forty-three  per  cent,  are  ignor- 
ant of  reading  or  writing.  Among  the  older  peasants 
scarcely  five  in  a  hundred  can  read  a  line.  The  female 
sex  is  hardly  taught  at  all.  The  Russian  periodical 
Nedlya  (The  Week)  makes  the  statement  that  not  more 


Slow  Growth  of  a  Middle  Class    229 

than  one  peasant  girl  out  of  every  seven  has  even  a 
slight  knowledge  of  reading.  In  many  villages  there 
is  not  a  single  woman  or  girl  able  to  read  or  write. 

Among  the  growing  youth  the  ambition  is  wide- 
spread to  acquire  a  fair  measure  of  knowledge.  This 
applies  particularly  to  the  middle  class.  Enthusiasm, 
persistence,  and  respect  for  knowledge  are  increasing. 
Russian  students,  male  and  female,  are  thronging  the 
universities  and  technical  high  schools  of  Germany  and 
Switzerland,  and  they  exhibit  admirable  qualities  of 
diligence,  quick  perception,  and  the  ability  to  endure 
hardships. 

The  revolutionary  element  among  them,  both  at 
home  and  abroad,  is  decreasing.  The  fact  that  even 
of  late  frequent  riots  have  taken  place  at  the  univers- 
ities of  St.  Petersburg,  Moscow,  Kieff,  and  other  cities 
must  not  be  misinterpreted.  These  demonstrations 
were  due  mainly  to  the  draconic  administrative  meas- 
ures adopted  some  time  ago  for  the  stricter  discipline 
of  the  students.  Nihilism,  as  a  separate  political  creed, 
plots  for  the  assassination  of  obnoxious  dignitaries, 
have  in  the  main  been  abandoned.  A  gradual  but 
thorough  change  has  come  over  the  minds  of  these 
youthful  extremists,  especially  since  the  assassination 
of  Alexander  II.  It  is  true  that  the  successful  attempt 
on  the  life  of  Sipiaguine,  a  minister  particularly  objec- 
tionable to  the  university  students,  was  by  many  put  to 
the  score  of  the  latter.  But  the  evidence  tended  all  in 
the  other  direction. 


230  Russia 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  actual  conditions  of 
Russia  necessarily  excite  in  particularly  impressionable 
individuals  a  state  of  mind  and  feeling  easily  roused  to 
revolutionary  tactics.  And  such  impressionable  indi- 
viduals in  the  nature  of  things  will  most  readily  and 
numerously  be  found  among  the  youth  at  the  transi- 
tional stage  of  life.  The  barbarously  severe  reactionism 
of  Alexander  III.  could  not  fail  to  keep  such  sentiments 
alive.  Nevertheless,  as  above  pointed  out,  the  Russian 
student  class  have  become  convinced  of  the  former  folly 
of  their  ways.  They  have  learned  patience.  They 
have  become  aware  of  the  fact  that  the  Russian  peas- 
antry, for  whose  benefit  in  former  years  they  sacrificed 
life  and  future,  are  not  ripe  for  their  ideas;  nay,  that 
these  same  peasants  would  slay  them  like  wild  beasts 
as  the  enemies  of  the  Czar. 

Meanwhile  industrialism  has  arisen  in  Russia,  and 
has  drawn  several  millions  of  former  peasants  into  the 
centres  of  population.  Famine  after  famine  has  devas- 
tated the  country,  and  the  labouring  masses  in  the 
towns  have  begun  to  learn  that  this  enthusiastic  student 
youth  are  fighting  their  own  battle.  A  dim  conception 
of  this  has  also  entered  the  mind  of  the  peasant.  Be- 
sides, the  young  revolutionaries  have  doubtless  re- 
marked that  the  government,  in  other  words  the 
bureaucracy,  are  all  along  playing  into  their  hands. 
The  faults  of  this  bureaucracy  are  becoming  greater 
year  by  year,  in  such  a  measure  as  even  to  outweigh 
the  almost  endless  patience  and  passive  obedience  of 


Slow  Growth  of  a  Middle  Class    231 

the  Russian  peasant.  At  the  same  time  they  remarked 
that  the  government  is  carrying  on  a  campaign  of  op- 
pression and  religious  and  national  persecution  against 
all  the  non- Russian  elements  in  the  empire,  from  Hel- 
singfors  to  Tiflis.  Thus  they  conclude  that  it  is 
wisdom  to  wait. 

A  new  and  interesting  element  in  all  this,  that  is, 
not  only  in  the  ranks  of  the  students  but  in  the  ranks 
of  bureaucracy,  has  arisen  in  Russia  in  the  person 
of  the  "  popes'  sons."  Up  to  not  many  years  ago  the 
clergy  of  the  Russian  Orthodox  Church  formed  a  caste. 
Their  sons  were  compelled  to  join  themselves  the 
clergy.  This  is  no  longer  the  case,  and  the  male  pro- 
geny of  the  pope  may  now  enter  worldly  callings.  He 
is  crowding  particularly  into  the  learned  professions, 
the  provincial  appointments,  and  above  all  into  the 
government  offices,  gradually  displacing  everywhere 
the  degenerate  nobility.  Abjectly  poor,  these  sons  of 
the  Russian  clergy  by  intense  work  and  a  persistence 
beyond  all  discouragement  contrive  to  obtain  the  great 
majority  of  free  scholarships  in  the  Russian  universities 
and  colleges.  These  scholarships,  however,  do  not 
yield  them  an  income  large  enough  for  even  their 
modest  needs.  Thus,  the  growing  generation  of  Rus- 
sian priests'  sons  swell  the  ranks  of  the  dissatisfied 
everywhere.  Thousands  of  them  have  entirely  dis- 
carded the  faith  of  their  fathers,  and  are  intensely  re- 
volutionary in  spirit.  As  a  rule  they  are  able  men  and 
have  acquired  in  the  school  of  adversity  the  habit  of 


232  Russia 

diligence  and  close  application.  But  it  cannot  be  de- 
nied that  they  form  a  most  dangerous  new  element  in 
the  body  politic  of  the  empire. 

As  they  slowly  ascend  the  ladder  of  bureaucracy, 
they  often  change  their  views,  or  at  least  their  tactics. 
From  among  the  ranks  of  these  ' '  popes'  sons ' '  have 
graduated  such  remarkable  men  in  the  Russia  of  re- 
cent days  as  the  Chief  Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod, 
Pobyedonostseflf,  himself;  Bogolepoflf,  the  Minister  of 
Education  (murdered  not  long  ago);  Wishnegradsky, 
the  able  Finance  Minister,  and  many  others. 

Among  the  ills  to  which  the  unwise  system  of  public 
education  in  Russia  gives  rise,  is  the  necessity  of  com- 
plementing the  measure  of  instruction  and  knowledge 
obtainable  at  Russian  institutions  by  a  residence  of  one 
or  more  years  abroad.  By  Russianising,  that  is, 
lowering  the  level,  of  her  former  best  universities  the 
government  has  cut  into  its  own  flesh.  The  higher 
administrative  offices  in  Russia  were  formerly  largely 
reserved  for  graduates  of  her  one  university  on  a  par 
with  Western  ideas  and  requirements,  namely,  Dorpat. 
This  university  she  has  now  reduced  even  below  the 
level  of  her  better  seats  of  learning  in  Russia  proper. 
The  very  name  of  Dorpat  has  been  wiped  out,  and 
changed  to  Yurieflf,  and  Russian  students  unable  to  fol- 
low the  courses  at  Moscow  or  St.  Petersburg  now  find 
it  easy  sailing  at  Yurieflf.  In  this  way  Russia  has  de- 
prived herself  of  her  best  administrative  officials  and 
physicians,  for  the  medical  department  in  Dorpat  was 


Slow  Growth  of  a  Middle  Class    233 

of  acknowledged  excellence,  and  its  graduates  sup- 
plied all  through  the  nineteenth  century  the  whole  of 
Russia  with  her  best  practitioners.  At  present  Russia 
is  obliged — since  she  cannot  do  entirely  without  profes- 
sional men  of  thorough  training  and  attainments — to 
send  every  year  a  percentage  of  her  abler  graduates 
from  Moscow  and  other  universities  to  Berlin  (where 
alone  some  three  hundred  Russian  students  are  taking 
post-graduate  courses),  Zurich,  Geneva,  and  other  for- 
eign places.  It  goes  without  saying  that  these  young 
men,  highly  intelligent  as  they  are,  cannot  fail  to  draw 
parallels  between  home  and  foreign  conditions,  and  that 
the}'  return  in  many  cases  bitter  enemies  of  their  own 
government: 

It  may  astonish  many  when  the  claim  is  set  up  here 
that  much  of  Russian  science  and  art  is  not  of  Russian 
national  origin.  The  fact  is  nevertheless  true.  There 
are  relatively  few  Russian  scientists  who  are  of  Russian 
blood,  even  when  the  name  might  lead  the  unwary  to 
suppose  so.  The  latest  and  most  shining  light  of  Rus- 
sian science,  the  chemist,  Mendeleyeflf,  is  of  Polish 
origin.  The  acknowledged  greatest  physician  of  Rus- 
sia is  a  Jew.  Her  great  scientist,  Karamsin,  is  a 
Tartar  of  pure  lineage;  Aivasovski  is  an  Armenian; 
Bruelow  is  a  Prussian;  Sasha  Schneider  is  a  Baltic 
German;  Antokolsk  is  another  Jew,  and  so  it  goes.  In 
the  main  Russian  science  in  every  field  is  ploughing 
with  foreign  horses.  German,  French,  English,  and 
of  late  American  authors  and  scientists  are  plundered 


234  Russia 

and  the  fruits  of  their  minds  amalgamated  into  transla- 
tions or  adaptations  to  nourish  the  thirst  for  knowledge 
of  the  Russian  student.  And  when  a  Russian  scientist 
does  produce  an  original  work,  such,  for  instance,  as 
Ilovaiski  with  his  Russian  history,  it  were  better  it  had 
been  left  undone,  for  it  violates  grossly  the  spirit  of 
history  and  of  internal  truth. 

It  is  quite  different  with  Russian  literature.  That, 
on  the  whole,  must  be  classed  very  highly.  True,  in 
drama  the  Russian  genius  is  deficient.  To  compose  a 
play  meeting  stage  requirements  and  holding  the  atten- 
tion of  the  audience  from  first  to  last,  calls  for  un-Rus- 
sian  qualities  of  mind — for  concentration  of  thought,  for 
terse  diction,  and  for  thorough  command  of  plot  and 
situations.  It  is  because  of  this  that  in  the  whole 
range  of  Russian  literature  we  find  scarcely  a  half-dozen 
plays  which  could  successfully  stand  Western  tests. 
There  is  Gogol's  Rcvisor,  according  to  our  minds  the 
best  Russian  drama.  Then  there  are  a  couple  of  inter- 
esting plays  by  Gribaeyedofif  and  Ostrovski,  and  the 
cycle  of  three  national  tragedies  by  Count  Alexis 
Tolstoi.  That  really  comprises  all  that  is  first-class  in 
the  Russian  drama.  All  the  other  plays  are  but  medi- 
ocre, according  to  our  Western  notions,  though  indi- 
vidually there  is  much  good  in  many  of  them,  single 
scenes  being  often  true  to  life  and  full  of  a  peculiar 
charm.  In  fact,  viewed  purely  as  dranies  de  mceurs^ 
not  a  few  are  inimitable. 

But  epic  and  lyric  poetry  is  very  fine  in  the  Russian 


Slow  Growth  of  a  Middle  Class    235 

tongue.  The  two  earlier  writers,  I,ermontoflf  and 
Pushkin,  alone  suffice  to  range  Russia  on  the  level  of 
Western  nations.  But  the  peculiar  excellence  attained 
by  Russian  literature  is  all  in  the  line  of  the  novel, 
character  sketch,  short  story,  popular  tale,  and  so  on. 
In  this  field,  the  special  form  of  the  Russian  mind 
comes  to  the  writer's  aid. 

Indeed,  the  Russian  has  a  very  acute  perception  of 
form,  and  he  is  a  keen  observer  and  shrewd  critic.  All 
that  helps  him  greatly  in  this  department  of  literature. 

To  these  advantages  must  be  added  the  immeasurable 
advantage  of  idiom.  The  Russian  language  is  of  a 
wonderful  richness  and  flexibility,  permitting  the 
writer  to  adapt  his  thought  precisely  to  his  words.  It 
easily  expresses  every  shade  of  meaning,  even  the 
faintest,  as  well  as  every  mood.  In  that  respect  it  is 
without  doubt  the  most  perfect  instrument  for  a  literary 
worker.  No  other  modern  tongue  approaches  it  in 
these  particulars.  True,  it  could  not  be  styled  a  "  sci- 
entific" language,  and  works  of  abstract  reasoning  or 
of  exact  definition,  such  as  philosophical  or  legal  writ- 
ings, could  not  be  adequately  couched  in  Russian;  they 
suffer  greatly  in  the  translation.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  Russian  literary  works  on  their  part  lose  much 
of  their  original  flavour  by  a  rendering  into  any  other 
tongue,  more  than  would  translations  from  the  Italian, 
English,  German,  or  French.  This  fact  accounts  for 
the  totally  difi"erent  impression  which  the  writings  of 
such  masters  of  description  and  conversation  as  Gogol, 


236  Russia 

TurgueniefF,  Terpigoreff,  and  Gorki  make  on  the  mind 
of  the  reader  when  perused  either  in  the  original  or  in 
any  kind  of  translation. 

The  greatest,  perhaps,  of  all  psychological  novels 
ever  written  in  any  literature  is  DostoyefFski's  Crime 
mid  Punishment,  when  read  in  the  original.  The  hero 
of  this  weird  tale,  Raskolnikoff,  is  a  poetic  creation  so 
microscopically  faithful  to  conditions  of  a  particular 
class  of  Russian  society  that  to  understand  him  is  to 
understand  that  odd  being,  the  Russian  student.  There 
can  be  nothing — certainly  nothing  outside  of  Hamlet — 
showing  more  intuitive  genius  than  the  author  has  put 
into  the  conversation  between  the  undiscovered  yet  re- 
pentant criminal,  Raskolnikoff,  and  the  police  officials 
trying  to  trace  the  culprit.  The  psychological  finesse 
displayed  in  this  part  of  the  novel  is  an  unmatched 
masterpiece  in  the  world's  fiction. 

Or,  looking  at  other  departments  of  fiction,  what 
could  be  more  finished  in  its  way  than  Aksakoff's 
Family  Chronicle,  or  the  tales  of  Turguenieff  ?  By  per- 
fectly simple,  apparently  naive  means,  in  limpid  and 
quite  natural  language,  we  here  gaze  down  to  the  very 
bottom  of  the  Russian  soul,  and  are  enabled  to  fathom 
its  complexities.  What  warmth  in  the  description  of 
men  and  nature!  Or,  taking  Terpigoreff 's  greatest 
story.  Decadence — it  is  a  veritable  treasure-trove  for  the 
student  of  Russian  social  conditions,  so  minute  and 
photographically  correct. 

The  youngest  of  the  Russian  writers  have  turned 


Slow  Growth  of  a  Middle  Class   237 

purelj'  realists,  and  that  means  for  a  country  like  Rus- 
sia that  there  is  much  more  black  and  grey  than  white 
on  their  palettes.  Much  of  their  writing  is  not  to 
Western  taste.  But  they  all  show  the  excellences  men- 
tioned before.  Of  course,  the  Russian  tongue  has  the 
demerit  of  its  virtues.  It  is  not  made  for  the  drawing- 
room,  and  for  an  elegant  causerie  it  is  not  so  good  a 
vehicle  as  French  would  be. 

One  other  peculiarity  of  Russian  literature  must  be 
noted.  It  is  particularly  rich  in  sarcasm  and  irony, 
and  this  fact  again  is  due  both  to  the  national  character 
(which  thus  finds  an  only  vent  for  a  discontent  other- 
wise not  permitted  to  express  itself)  and  to  the  national 
language.  This  form  of  Russian  writing,  though, 
lends  itself  least  of  all  to  translation  and  foreign  ap- 
preciation, for  it  demands  of  the  reader  a  thorough  ac- 
quaintance with  Russian  conditions.  To  the  Western 
mind  the  endless  persiflage  at  the  expense  of  Russian 
bureaucracy  becomes  rather  tedious,  though  it  is  in- 
tensely relished  by  the  Russian  reader. 


CHAPTER  X 

INTERNAL  RACE  STRIFE 

Traditional  Hatred  of  the  Russian  for  Pole,  Tartar,  and  Turk — 
Unfortunate  Coincidence  of  the  Rise  of  the  Press  and  the 
Introduction  of  Reforms  under  Alexander  II.  with  the 
Date  of  the  Polish  Uprising  in  1863 — Arousal  of  the  Rus- 
sian Jingo  Spirit— Since  the  Sixties  the  KatkoflF  Party  and 
its  Disciples  Engaged  in  a  Campaign  of  Russification 
Aimed  at  All  the  Non-Russian  Elements  Residing  within 
the  Borders  of  the  Empire — Poland  the  First  to  Suffer — 
Next  Came  the  Baltic  German  Provinces — Lastly,  Finland 
and  the  Caucasus  Populations,  Particularly  the  Armenians 
— How  the  Czarish  Government  Found  itself  between  Two 
Main  Currents  of  Russian  Aspiration — The  Choice  in 
Favour  of  the  Jingo  Current  a  Matter  of  Internal  Necessity 

SINCE  the  Romanoffs  became  the  ruling  dynasty  in 
Russia,  in  1613,  national  consciousness  had  slum- 
bered complacently  for  precisely  two  hundred  years. 
It  awoke  with  furious  energy  when  Napoleon  I.,  with 
his  countless  hosts,  invaded  "  Holy  Russia."  Since 
then  the  .sentiment  has  gone  on  growing.  National 
anger  was  rekindled  by  the  Polish  uprising  of  1830, 
but  in  a  far  higher  degree  by  the  one  of  1863.  Deeply 
settled  in  the  Russian  mind  was  the  belief  that  next  to 
the  Tartars  and  Turks  the  hereditary  foe  was  still  the 

238 


Internal  Race  Strife  239 

Pole,  although  for  many  years  past  fear  of  the  re-estab- 
lishment of  Polish  supremacy  had  ceased. 

A  new  increment  of  this  national  consciousness  was 
added  by  the  gradual  spread  of  a  measure  of  education, 
having  in  its  wake  a  similarly  slow  awakening  of  in- 
terest in  public  things,  furthered  above  all  by  the  press. 
For,  shackled  as  it  was,  the  press  nevertheless  has  been 
a  larger  factor  in  bringing  about  to  a  certain  degree 
modern  conditions  in  Russia  than  all  other  factors 
combined.  To-day  there  is  scarcely  a  village  within 
the  vast  empire  where  there  resides  not  at  least  one 
subscriber  to  a  Russian  newspaper  or  magazine,  and 
such  vehicles  of  intelligence  are  read,  nay,  pored  over 
with  far  greater  attention  than  the  hurried  Western 
reader  devotes  even  to  his  favourite  sheet. 

True,  the  great  mass  of  the  peasantry  (and  we  must 
never  forget  that  the  peasantry  practically  mean  the 
whole  Russian  nation)  have  not  even  to-day  any  gen- 
eral conception  of  state  and  government,  not  even  the 
dimmest.  All  things  political  in  their  minds  embody 
themselves  in  Czar  and  Church.  And  blindly  they  fol- 
low the  lead  of  these  two  powers.  This  again  is  largely 
a  matter  of  tradition,  for  during  the  centuries-long 
warfare  with  the  Tartars,  Poles,  and  Turks,  the  Russian 
peasant  had  come  to  associate  in  his  mind  the  idea  of 
Czar  and  Church  with  the  very  existence  of  the  nation. 

Nevertheless,  by  natural  disposition  the  Russian  is 
peace-loving,  and  of  his  own  accord  he  never  favours 
aggressive  war,  though  he  is  strong  in  defence.     The 


240  Russia 

Russian  call  to  arms,  which  even  to-day  inflames  every 
village  when  uttered:  "  They  are  attacking  our  men!  " 
is  a  call  for  defence,  not  of  aggression. 

Peter  the  Great  made,  so  to  speak,  the  nobility  the 
"  serfs  of  the  government,"  compelling  every  noble  to 
serve  him,  for  a  longer  or  shorter  term,  either  in  the 
army  or  in  the  civil  administration.  Thus  it  was  that 
the  nobility  in  Russia  alone  participated  in  political 
life,  so  far  as  that  could  be  done  under  a  despotic  form 
of  government.  All  internal  Russian  uprisings,  with 
the  single  exception  of  Pougatcheff 's,  were  conceived 
and  led  by  the  nobility.  There  have  been,  it  is  true, 
numberless  peasant  riots,  and  they  were  particularly 
frequent  during  the  reign  of  Nicholas  I.  But  all  these 
riots  were  not  of  a  political  nature ;  they  were  solely 
due  to  local  oppression,  be  it  on  the  part  of  noble  or 
official. 

Since  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  how-, 

ever,  the  Russian  nobility  became  more  or  less  imbued 

with  Western  ideas,  and  in  mode  of  thought  and  man- 
» 

ner  of  living  they  changed  greatly.  Within  this  no- 
bility, particularly  its  lower  strata,  a  species  of  public 
opinion  formed  itself  which  might  or  might  not  oppose 
the  existing  regime,  but  which  in  any  case  was  inde- 
pendent of  it  and  knew  how  to  impose  itself  upon  the 
country.  This  portion  of  the  Russian  nobility  was  the 
one  which  Europe  most  often  heard  from  and  by  which 
too  generally  the  Western  mind  has  measured  the  Rus- 
sian nation  as  a  whole.    These  were  the  talented  but  ex- 


Internal  Race  Strife  241 

travagant  Russian  writers  and  journalists,  the  restless 
and  revolutionary  university  students,  and  the  philoso- 
phising and  endlessly  reflecting  Russians  met  abroad. 
Together  they  produced  an  enormous  volume  of  sound, 
discordant  but  impressive.  Turguenieff"  paints  them  to 
the  life  in  his  Neiv  Earth.  But  though  noisy  this  ele- 
ment was  but  the  fraction  of  one  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
nation,  and  though  it  influenced  it  in  a  measure,  it 
would  be  most  untruthful  to  call  these  men  the  leaders 
of  Russian  thought.  All  the  same,  when  a  czar  had 
come  at  last  in  the  person  of  Alexander  II.  to  liberate 
the  cowering  millions  of  serfs,  and  when  a  reform  era 
seemed  to  have  set  in,  many  persons  even  in  Russia 
wrongly  attributed  all  these  new  things  to  the  afore- 
mentioned infinitesimal  fragment  of  the  nation. 

The  reforms  of  1861-1864  happened  to  come  simul- 
taneously with  the  great  iPolish  rising.  This  was  a 
most  unfortunate  coincidence.  For  the  reform  meas- 
ures of  Alexander  II.  had  stirred  the  whole  nation  to 
the  very  depths.  A  spirit  of  hope  and  a  force  of  energy 
had  been  engendered  by  those  liberal  steps,  and  these 
surging  sentiments  were  looking  for  a  safety-valve. 
The  Polish  insurrection  furnished  that.  The  enthusi- 
asm that  had  been  kindled  by  imperial  reforms  now 
seized  upon  this  great  attempt  of  the  Poles  to  throw  off" 
the  Muscovite  yoke.  In  all  liberal  and  patriotic  circles 
in  Russia  proper  the  motto  was  given  out:  Save  the 
fatherland!  Avenge  the  nation!  In  a  word,  the  Po- 
lish uprising  opportunely  served  as  something  like  a 
16 


242  Russia 

lightning  conductor  to  excited  Russian  opinion.  And 
incidentally  this  same  Polish  uprising  proved  the  grave 
of  the  Russian  internal  reform  movement.  For  it  di- 
verted for  a  considerable  space  of  time  the  energies  of 
the  educated  class  in  Russia  into  this  new  channel;  it 
compelled  Alexander  II,  to  shelve  his  own  liberal  pro- 
jects, and  when  at  last  Poland  had  been  once  more  sub- 
dued, both  Czar  and  nation  had  ceased  for  the  time 
feeling  any  special  interest  in  internal  reforms.  This 
view  of  the  matter  is  one  to  which  Western  Europe  has 
never  given  much  attention.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  consequences  brought  about  for  Russia  itself  by  the 
Polish  insurrection  of  1863  were  much  more  serious  and 
far-reaching  than  those  for  Poland. 

The  young  Russian  press  threw  itself  with  a  will 
into  the  problem  of  quelling  the  Polish  insurrection, 
holding  high  the  national  flag  and  inflaming  pa- 
triotism and  national  prejudices.  In  so  doing  this 
press  fought  side  by  side  with  the  government  and 
became  the  mouthpiece  not  only  of  the  latter  but  also 
of  almost  the  entire  thoughtful  portion  of  the  Rus- 
sian people.  That  again  was,  as  subsequent  events 
showed,  a  most  deplorable  thing.  Inflamed  Russian 
opinion,  as  represented  by  the  press  (which,  by  the 
way,  during  that  particular  period  was  left  almost 
entirely  unbridled),  sanctioned  the  complete  overthrow 
of  Polish  aspirations,  and  thus  unwittingly  made  itself 
the  catspaw  of  despotism. 

But  at  last  Poland  lay  prostrate,  helpless  under  the 


Internal  Race  Strife  243 

foot  of  the  conqueror,  and  the  Polish  problem  seemed 
solved.  Quiet,  the  quiet  of  the  graveyard,  ruled  along 
the  borders  of  the  Vistula.  Then  what  was  the  Rus- 
sian press,  what  was  excited  Russian  public  opinion  to 
do  ?  Evidently  their  mission  must  be  to  go  on  "  sav- 
ing the  fatherland."  And  how  else  could  that  be  done 
than  by  entering  on  a  systematic  campaign  against  all 
those  populations  annexed  by  Russia  in  the  course  of 
centuries  which,  like  the  Polish,  were  non-Russian  in 
blood,  creed,  thought,  and  ideals?  This  afforded  an 
immense  programme,  and  a  popular  one.  To  Russify 
all  these  non- Russian  elements  became  hereafter  the 
great  task  which  the  Russian  press  and  public  opinion 
set  themselves.  For  a  time  Czar  Alexander  II.  and  his 
government  held  aloof  from  this  programme.  But  it 
gathered  in  momentum  and  strength,  steadily  and 
rapidly;  it  enrolled  under  its  banner  the  leading  men  of 
Russia,  and  finally  the  government  could  no  longer 
withstand  its  impetus. 

While  an  autocracy  the  Russian  government  had  all 
along  been  compelled  to  mind  more  or  less  the  feeling 
of  the  great  nobles,  of  the  army  and  officials.  During 
the  sixties  the  Czarish  autocracy  suddenly  found  itself 
between  two  strong  political  currents.  At  the  head  of 
the  one  stood  Katkofif,  representing  nationalistic  tenden- 
cies, and  urging  on  the  complete  assimilation  of  all  non- 
Russian  elements  within  the  empire.  Katkofif,  a  man 
of  unusual  ability  and  a  fanatic  of  his  convictions,  was 
for  a  generation  the  dreaded  editor  and  proprietor  of 


244  Russia 

the  Moscow  Vyedomosti,  and  he  knew  how  to  make  his 
organ  the  stormy  voice  of  the  most  influential  portion 
of  the  nation.  For  years  he,  his  paper,  and  his  per- 
sonal influence  were  more  feared  even  than  the  power 
of  the  Czar  and  his  government.  On  more  than  one 
occasion  of  critical  import  he  made,  in  fact,  the  latter 
his  instrument.  The  other  current,  the  Socialistic 
movement,  was  under  the  leadership  of  Alexander 
Herzen.  Although  the  latter  lived  and  died  in  exile, 
yet  his  influence  with  other  strata  of  the  Russian  peo- 
ple was  as  great  as  Katkoff's.  Through  his  paper. 
The  Bell,  published  in  I^ondon,  but  which  through  un- 
derground channels  he  circulated  throughout  Russia 
and  which  was  even  regularly  read  by  the  Czar,  his 
court  and  government,  he  exerted  an  immeasurable  in- 
fluence over  all  that  was  liberal  in  the  empire.  These 
two  currents  attained  an  enormous  sweep.  The  one, 
aggressively  jingoistic  and  reactionary,  made  out  of 
Mouravieff',  the  "hangman  of  Warsaw,"  a  national 
hero,  while  the  other  saw  first  in  Bakounin,  a  wild  an- 
archist and  conspirator,  and  later  in  Vera  Sassulitch, 
its  ideals.  Between  the  two  Alexander  II.  and  his 
government  could  make  but  one  choice,  and  that  was 
towards  the  side  of  Katkoff". 

And  thus  we  see  Russia's  intellectual  and  material 
political  forces  since  the  sixties  mainly  engrossed  with 
the  task  of  bringing  under  the  complete  ^way  of  Rus- 
sia all  her  non-Russian  elements. 

Poland  came  first.     Four  years  only  were  required 


Internal  Race  Strife  245 

completely  to  subdue  her.  After  Mouravieff  had  ex- 
ecuted thousands  of  Polish  rebels  and  sent  many  more 
thousands  to  the  Siberian  mines,  after  Kaufmann  had 
performed  similar  services  in  Lithuania,  the  Russian 
jingo  statesmen,  Tcherkasski  and  Milyutin,  products 
of  Katkoff's  teachings,  concluded  these  Russifying  la- 
bours by  entirely  changing  the  civil  and  military  ad- 
ministration of  Poland  and  bringing  both  very  close 
indeed  to  Russian  ideals.  Poland,  in  fact,  as  a  separate 
entity,  ceased  to  exist.  All  her  old  privileges,  sworn 
to  by  every  Russian  czar  since  the  annexation  days  to- 
wards the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  were  abro- 
gated,  one  by  one. 

Then  came  the  turn  of  the  Baltic  provinces,  L,ivonia, 
Esthonia,  and  Courland.  During  the  thirteenth 
century  the  Teutonic  Knights  had  conquered  these 
provinces  and  converted  their  pagan  populations  to 
Christianity,  in  the  old-fashioned  way,  by  fire  and 
sword.  They  had  set  up  an  orderly  form  of  govern- 
ment, and  drawn  German  settlers  and  burghers  to  the 
conquered  districts.  The  German  settlers  founded  all 
the  towns  in  these  three  provinces.  Some  of  these 
towns,  such  as  Riga,  Mitau,  L^ibau,  Reval,  Dorpat,  be- 
came large  and  populous,  and  some  count  amongst  the 
most  important  for  Russia's  sea  trade  to-day.  The 
civilisation  of  the  Baltic  provinces  was  entirely  Ger- 
man. Although  numerically  in  a  minority,  the  Ger- 
man element  there  had  all  along  been  the  predominant 
one.     Dorpat  had  become  a  German  university,  taking 


246  Russia 

equal  rank  in  point  of  efiSciency  and  original  researcli 
with  the  best  in  Germany  proper;  it  had  also  supplied 
Russia  ever  since  the  days  of  annexation  in  the  eight- 
eenth century  with  her  brainiest  and  best  administra- 
tors, generals,  statesmen,  and  professional  men.  But, 
of  course,  this  was  all  the  more  reason  why  the  party 
of  Katkofif  insisted  on  the  ruthless  Russification  of  the 
Baltic  provinces. 

The  process  was  inaugurated  in  1867.  Certain  po- 
litical changes  in  Germany  afforded  a  welcome  pretext 
to  the  Katkoff  party  to  insist  on  their  programme  of 
denationalising  the  Baltic  Germans.  The  North  Ger- 
man Confederation  had  been  founded  as  the  outcome 
of  Prussia's  war  with  Austria,  in  1866.  Then  came 
the  unification  of  Germany  and  her  rise  as  an  empire, 
the  outgrowth  of  the  Franco-German  War  of  1870. 
The  Russian  jingoes  declared,  though  there  was  not  a 
scintilla  of  fact  to  back  them  up,  that  the  Baltic  pro- 
vinces desired  annexation  by  Germany,  and  that  Bis- 
marck's policy  embraced  this  project.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  both  contentions  were  untrue.  The  Baltic  Ger- 
mans had  up  to  that  time  been  very  well  satisfied  as 
the  prosperous  inhabitants  of  three  autonomous  pro- 
vinces of  Russia.  While  bonds  of  race  affinity  and  of 
identity  of  language  and  culture  existed  between  Ger- 
many and  the  Baltic  provinces,  no  idea  had  at  any  time 
been  entertained  by  the  German  people  or  its  statesmen 
of  politically  amalgamating  these  districts,  separated  as 
they  were  from  the  nearest  German  territory  by  hund- 


Internal  Race  Strife  247 

reds  of  miles  of  intervening  territory  populated  by 
non-German-speaking  tribes. 

Personally  Alexander  II.  was  greatly  averse  to  a 
Russifying  process  in  the  Baltic  provinces.  On  Octo- 
ber 12,  1867,  he  received  a  representative  delegation  of 
these  provinces,  who  had  come  to  enter  a  formal  protest 
against  the  carrying-out  of  the  KatkoflF  programme. 
The  monarch,  whose  German  sympathies  were  avow- 
edly very  strong,  received  this  delegation  most  kindly. 
In  an  address  he  made  to  them  he  professed  no  inten- 
tion on  his  part  or  that  of  his  government  to  aid  in 
wresting  from  them  their  ancient  privileges  and  au- 
tonomy. On  the  contrary,  he  assured  them  most  em- 
phatically that  he  would  oppose  to  the  utmost  any  such 
policy.  He  took  pains  to  say  that  he  was  perfectly 
aware  of  the  loyalty  of  his  Baltic  provinces  and  of  the 
high  value  which  they  in  their  present  condition  had 
for  Russia. 

These  assurances  by  Alexander  II.  were  evidently 
quite  sincere,  but  the  situation  had  meanwhile  grown 
to  a  point  where  it  defied  control  by  the  nominal  auto- 
crat. In  a  foregoing  paragraph  we  have  seen  the  rea- 
sons for  the  inability  of  the  imperial  government  to 
withstand  the  national  propaganda.  The  events  of 
1 870- 1 87 1  once  more  played  into  the  hands  of  the  Rus- 
sian jingoes.  They  accused  Alexander  II.  of  having 
assisted  in  the  unification  of  Germany  and  of  having 
rendered  moral  and  diplomatic  aid  to  her  during  her 
struggle  with  France,  thus  having  been  instrumental 


248  Russia 

in  erecting  a  new  power  on  the  western  flank  of  Russia 
and  thereby  increasing  very  largely  Russia's  difficulties 
in  her  external  policy.  These  reproaches,  it  must  be 
admitted,  were  more  or  less  founded  in  fact,  and  their 
justice  did  much  in  weakening  Alexander  II. 's  position 
in  his  attempts  to  preserve  the  Baltic  provinces  as  a 
separate  political  conformation.  During  the  seventies, 
therefore,  the  Russification  of  the  German-speaking 
provinces  of  Russia  was  in  the  main  achieved.  During 
the  reign  of  Alexander  III.  the  process  was  carried  to 
extreme  and  brutal  measures,  and  to-day  not  a  spark 
of  former  Baltic  liberties  remains.  The  use  of  the  Rus- 
sian language  in  lieu  of  the  German  and  of  the  Lettish 
and  Esthonian  (idioms  spoken  by  the  native  lower 
classes  there,  largely  in  the  rural  districts)  has  been 
enforced.  Russian  administrative  methods,  with  their 
corruption,  inefficiency,  and  senseless  formalism,  have 
superseded  the  sensible  and  effective  ones  in  vogue  be- 
fore. In  a  word,  the  Baltic  provinces  have  become 
Russian  to  all  outward  semblance.  The  Holy  Synod 
here  as  in  Poland  has  been  and  is  at  work  uprooting 
schism  and  heresy,  and  supplanting  them  by  the  tenets 
and  practices  of  the  Orthodox  Church. 

Underneath  this  surface,  though,  the  Baltic  pro- 
vinces have  become  violently  anti-Russian — politically, 
socially,  and  intellectually.  The  sons  of  well-to-do 
parents  are  now  sent  to  Germany  to  receive  their  edu- 
cation. The  conquest  of  these  provinces  by  brute  force 
has  been  no  real  benefit  to  Russia;  on  the  contrary,  it 


Internal  Race  Strife  249 

has  weakened  her  at  one  of  the  most  vulnerable  points 
in  her  territory  during  any  future  possible  war  with  one 
of  her  Western  neighbours,  Germany  or  Austria,  or 
both  combined.  It  has  alienated  from  her  the  most 
progressive  element  in  her  population. 

Russia's  war  against  Turkey  in  1 876-1 877  was  un- 
dertaken under  the  pressure  of  the  same  Russian  jingo 
clement,  again  headed  by  Katkoff,  and  against  the  de- 
cided wishes  of  Alexander  II.  At  that  time  the  Cher- 
nayefifs,  Ignatieffs,  and  Skobeleffs  were  the  banner 
bearers  of  the  Panslavic  movement,  allied  with  the 
jingoes.  The  results  of  this  war  did  not  correspond  to 
Russia's  expectations.  But  it  was  not  Bismarck  and 
Germany,  as  the  Russian  jingoes  at  that  time  and  ever 
since  have  claimed,  who  deprived  them  at  the  Congress 
of  Berlin  of  their  spoils,  but  the  cunning  statesmanship 
of  Beaconsfield  and  England.  Russia  had  put  herself 
in  the  wrong  at  the  very  start,  by  overreaching  herself. 
The  time  was  not  yet  ripe  for  a  Russian  seizure  of  the 
Golden  Horn. 

Anyway,  this  very  war  had  shown  both  the  internal 
and  external  weakness  of  Russia,  the  paucity  of  her 
resources,  and  the  lack  of  efficient  generalship,  even 
when  grappling  with  so  decadent  a  foe  as  Turkey. 

However,  Russian  jingo  opinion  was  not  amenable  to 
such  lessons.  After  this  war,  as  before,  the  internal  race 
strife  went  on  unremittingly.  After  the  Baltic  prov- 
inces, it  was  the  turn  of  Finland.  Alexander  III.  had 
begun  in  a  half-hearted  way  to  introduce  Russifying 


250  Russia 

methods  there.  The  present  Czar,  Nicholas  II.,  per- 
sonally a  kind-hearted  and  well-meaning  man  though 
he  be,  took  up  this  part  of  his  late  father's  programme, 
and  rode  roughshod  over  all  his  own  scruples  of  con- 
science, over  the  Constitution  of  Finland  which  he 
had  solemnly  sworn  to  protect,  and  over  the  high  cul- 
ture which  the  people  of  this  North-western  province 
of  Russia,  small  in  number  but  hardy  and  progressive 
in  spirit,  had  built  up  on  former  Swedish  foundations. 
It  forms,  humanly  speaking,  the  darkest  blot  on  the 
fair  fame  of  Nicholas  II.  The  process  of  Russification 
in  Finland,  carried  on  with  the  same  brutal  means 
which  had  distinguished  the  methods  of  Alexander  III. 
in  dealing  with  the  Baltic  provinces,  has  now  proceeded 
far  enough  to  discern  the  fact  that  Finland,  too,  is 
doomed  to  lose  wholly  her  independence  and  her  native 
culture,  so  superior  to  the  Russian.  Finland,  it  is  safe 
to  say,  will  be  another  Poland,  another  thorn  in  the 
flesh  of  Russia,  in  times  to  come. 

The  same  ruthless  process  of  thoroughly  Russianis- 
ing — which  means  lowering  the  intellectual  and  social 
level  and  estranging  the  feelings — her  populations  of 
foreign  blood  has  been  used  against  the  Caucasian 
tribes  of  the  Circassians,  Lesghians,  Georgians,  the 
Tartars,  and  Armenians,  all  of  them  possessing  quali- 
ties which  in  the  future  development  of  Russia  would 
stand  the  empire  in  good  stead.  The  Turcomans,  an- 
other race  of  great  slumbering  potentialities,  have  like- 
wise been  alienated  of  recent  years.     Even  the  L,ittle 


Internal  Race  Strife  251 

Russians,  though  themselves  of  Russian  blood,  have 
suffered  during  the  past  two  decades  from  this  un- 
healthy craze  for  levelling  all  differences  of  customs 
and  creed. 

This  feature  of  Russian  internal  policy  during  the 
last  thirty  years  can  scarcely  be  called  by  any  other 
term  than  suicidal.  A  strange  blindness  to  the  best 
interests  of  the  nation  as  a  whole  has  smitten  her  rulers 
and  governing  classes. 

Things  would  perhaps  have  taken  another  course  if 
the  hopes  entertained  very  generally  at  the  beginning 
of  Alexander  II. 's  reign  had  been  fulfilled.  If  the  pro- 
jects of  that  monarch  had  come  to  a  healthy  fruition, 
if  Russia  had  indeed  been  incorporated  with  the  civil- 
ised world,  the  jingo  element — a  curse  though  they 
have  been  to  Russia's  real  interests — w^ould  probably 
have  found  other  and  worthier  tasks  to  engage  their 
attention.  Instead  of  waging  fierce  race  strife,  the 
enormous  programme  of  introducing  and  fostering 
internal  improvement  might  have  claimed  their  full 
energies.  But  it  was  the  fate  of  Russia  that  that  was 
not  to  be. 

A  race  and  religious  war  carried  on  by  the  central 
government  and  all  its  subordinate  authorities  against 
those  portions  of  the  population  who  differ  from  the 
majority,  more  or  less,  in  creed  and  blood,  ideals  and 
customs,  means  far  more  for  the  empire  of  the  Czars 
than  it  would  for  other  countries.  For  the  Russian  is 
by  no  means  a  homogeneous  nation.     The  census  of 


252  Russia 

1897  shows,  in  round  figures,  more  than  one-third  of 
the  total  population,  namely,  forty-four  millions  as 
against  eighty-six  millions,  of  non-Russian  race.  It 
so  happens  that  these  forty-four  millions  compose  the 
vast  majority  in  the  border  provinces  of  the  empire, 
in  other  words,  those  provinces  geographically  most 
loosely  connected  with  the  whole.  And  it  is  also  the 
case  that  these  forty-four  millions  are  (with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Central  Asiatic  part  of  them)  the  most  ad- 
vanced portion  of  the  whole.  Altogether  there  are 
counted  in  Russia,  European  and  Asiatic,  over  two 
hundred  tribes,  hordes,  and  peoples  of  non-Russian 
blood,  speaking  as  many  idioms  and  belonging  to  scores 
of  creeds,  from  the  crude  Shamanism  of  the  Yakoots  to 
the  most  elevated  form  of  Christianity.  But,  leaving 
that  consideration  aside,  by  estranging  the  loyalty  and 
affection  of  the  most  enlightened  populations  under  the 
sway  of  the  Czar,  populations,  too,  holding  the  front- 
iers, Russia  is  committing  an  act  of  such  gigantic  folly 
that  one  must  pause  to  wonder  at  it.  In  a  future  war, 
such  as  Russia  is  sure  to  have  on  her  hands  some  day, 
the  loyalty  or  disaffection  of  these  border  populations 
will  alone  be  an  enormous  factor,  worth  whole  army 
corps  and  making  either  towards  her  ultimate  defeat  or 
victory. 

Meanwhile,  in  any  case,  the  submerging  of  her  most 
enlightened  populations  into  the  inchoate  mass,  the 
obliteration  of  a  high  degree  of  culture,  which  under 
normal  conditions  would  be  sure  to  benefit  the  entire 


Internal  Race  Strife  253 

nation  immensely — and  that  in  every  sphere  of  human 
activity — means  a  fearful  loss  of  vital  strength,  a  great 
weakening  of  all  the  forces  making  for  a  higher  level 
of  civilisation  and  prosperity.  That  no  statesman  has 
arisen  in  Russia  to  inculcate  this  palpable  truth  in  the 
minds  of  Czar  and  government,  is  a  sad  misfortune  for 
the  nation. 


CHAPTER  XI 

RUSSIAN  BUREAUCRACY 

The  Bomb  -whicli  Killed  Alexander  II.,  Twenty-three  Years 
Ago,  Killed  also  Projected  Internal  Reform — The  Long 
and  Bitter  Struggle  between  the  Handicapped  Provincial 
Chambers  and  the  Central  Government — Though  Hin- 
dered in  Every  Possible  Way  these  Local  Bodies  have 
Accomplished  Quite  a  Deal  of  Good — The  Further  Exten- 
sion of  their  Powers  Would  Do  Much  to  Neutralise  the 
Great  Harm  Done  by  Centralising  Bureaucracy — The 
Creeping  in  of  Disloyal  Elements  within  Russian  Official- 
dom— Present  Centralising  and  Monopolistic  Tendencies- 
New  Plans  in  this  Direction — Popular  Hatred  of  Bureau- 
cracy— The  Chief  Faults  of  the  Present  Bureaucratic 
System  :  Unwieldiness  of  the  Machine,  Widely  Diffused 
Corruption,  Divergent  Policies  and  Methods,  Impossibility 
of  Control,  Aversion  to  Reform  and  to  a  Consideration 
of  Popular  Wants — Fiscality  Extending  in  Russia — Work- 
ings of  the  New  Liquor  Monopoly — System  of  Supervising 
the  Universities  —  The  Rural  District  Captains  —  Some 
Amusing  Specimens  of  Red-Tapeism — Political  Forces  in 
Russia  and  in  English-Speaking  Countries 

THE  bomb  thrown  on  March  13,  1S81,  did  more 
than  tear  the  body  of  Alexander  II.  to  pieces. 
When  the  Czar's  lifeblood  from  his  horrible  wounds 
trickled  into  the  deep  snow,  the  sweeping  reforms  which 
that  ruler  had  been -on  the  point  of  authorising  were 
also  wiped  out  from  the  official  slate  of  Russia.     Alex- 

254 


Russian  Bureaucracy  255 

ander  III.  succeeded  to  the  throne,  a  man  of  radically 
different  fibre,  believing  in  suppression  and  oppression, 
in  bald  autocracy  and  in  barbarous  punishment  for  all 
those  who  held  other  views  than  his  own  regarding 
governmental  methods  in  Russia.  The  reform  pro- 
gramme of  his  father  was  shelved,  and  the  dark-age 
methods  of  his  grandfather,  the  despot,  Nicholas  I., 
restored.  It  was  a  great  pity.  When  Alexander  II. 
had  set  out  from  the  Winter  Palace  on  the  last  day  of 
his  life  to  take  a  sleigh-drive  along  the  broad  avenues 
of  St.  Petersburg,  he  had  left  on  his  desk,  ready  for  his 
signature,  an  instrument  which  after  careful  prepara- 
tion for  many  previous  months  had  found  his  sanction. 
That  instrument  put  in  force  would  have  placed  Russia 
squarely  on  the  path  leading  to  eventual  self-govern- 
ment. It  was  a  wise  and  thorough  reform  measure, 
admirably  adapted  to  the  peculiar  needs  of  Russia  and 
to  the  particular  bent  of  the  national  character.  Its 
chief  provisions  enlarged  the  scope  of  the  provincial 
representative  chambers,  granting  greater  powers  of 
taxation  for  local  improvements,  and  giving  them  in 
most  respects  authority  to  act  independent  of  the  organs 
of  the  central  government. 

The  assassination  of  the  Czar-Liberator  by  a  band  of 
fanatic  Nihilists  plunged  Russia  back  into  the  old  mire 
of  bureaucratism  and  corruption.  And  there  the  coun- 
try is  wallowing  still. 

The  zemstva  (provincial  chambers)  had  first  been 
created  by  Alexander  II.  early  in  his  reign.     These 


256  Russia 

bodies  were  composed  by  him  in  the  main  of  rural 
landholders,  nobles  and  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
the  conditions  and  needs  of  their  special  provinces. 
But  we  have  seen  elsewhere  that  the  whole  class  of 
noble  estate-owners  was  thoroughly  disorganised  and 
brought  to  a  frightful  pass  by  the  effects  of  serf  eman- 
cipation. It  was  partially  owing  to  their  rapid  demor- 
alisation that  these  provincial  chambers  from  the  start 
did  not  accomplish  as  much  in  the  betterment  of  pro- 
vincial government  as  had  been  expected  of  them. 
But  another  very  important  factor  of  their  small  success 
was  the  determined  opposition  and  the  bitter  animosity 
shown  by  the  entire  body  of  the  governmental  bureau- 
cracy to  this  new  and  rival  institution.  In  every  pos- 
sible way  the  large  and  influential  body  of  government 
officials  antagonised  and  hampered  the  zemstva.  The 
strongest  kind  of  pressure  was  also  from  the  start 
brought  to  bear  in  St.  Petersburg,  on  the  Czar  as  well 
as  on  his  cabinet,  to  curtail  the  powers  granted  these 
provincial  representative  bodies.  It  was  skilfully  in- 
sinuated that  the  provincial  chambers  were  constantly 
trying  to  abridge  the  Czarish  power,  and  these  insinua- 
tions were  more  or  less  believed.  Thus,  from  the  first, 
the  provincial  chambers  had  to  contend  with  difficulties 
which  in  the  long  run  they  were  unable  to  surmount. 
One  by  one  the  original  powers  and  privileges  conferred 
upon  them  were  taken  away  or  rendered  ineffective, 
and  within  a  certain  number  of  years  this  reform 
measure  was  made  a  dead  letter. 


Russian  Bureaucracy  257 

Even  within  the  sphere  of  activity  left  them  the  pro- 
vincial chambers,  as  was  but  natural,  made  many  mis- 
takes and  took  many  false  steps.  These,  of  course, 
were  exploited  to  their  disadvantage  by  the  bureaucracy 
to  the  utmost. 

Nevertheless,  within  their  ever-narrowing  limits 
these  provincial  chambers  have  accomplished  a  vast 
amount  of  good  for  rural  Russia.  To  mention  just  a 
few  of  the  benefits  due  to  them  it  may  be  said  that  they 
successfully  combated  epidemic  diseases  of  cattle  and 
horses.  The  epizootic  which  swept  repeatedly  during 
the  seventies  and  eighties  through  Russia,  as  it  did 
through  Europe  and  the  United  States,  was  brought  to 
a  halt  by  the  joint  and  efficient  efforts  of  the  zenistva. 
Medical  attendance  in  the  rural  districts  was  en- 
larged and  put  on  a  more  rational  plane.  The  ravages 
of  Asiatic  cholera,  smallpox,  and  typhus  were  kept 
within  narrower  bounds.  The  curse  of  quackery  was 
limited.  Famines  were  met  by  more  or  less  well-or- 
ganised action.  Hospitals  were  founded  in  the  country 
districts.  These  things  were  just  a  few  among  those 
attempted  and  carried  out  more  or  less  successfully 
by  the  provincial  chambers.  The  lower-class  public 
schools  organised  and  maintained  by  them  are  even  to- 
day the  best  of  their  kind  in  Russia. 

However,    bureaucracy   had    been    all-powerful   in 

Russia  before  the  advent  of  the  provincial  chambers, 

and  the  victory  in  the  strife  between  it  and  the  latter 

remained  for  many  years  with  the  organs  of  the  central 
17 


258  Russia 

government.  It  is  to  the  discredit  of  the  present  ruler, 
Nicholas  II.,  that  he  has  not  only  taken  no  steps  until 
the  present  day  to  restore  the  provincial  chambers  to 
their  former  powers,  but  that  he  has  actually  cut  them 
down  still  further  and  has  put  the  bureaucracy  on  the 
old  footing  of  virtual  omnipotence.  This  has  made 
bureaucratism — for  many  years  past  one  of  the  most 
serious  hindrances  to  Russia's  internal  progress — the 
greater  drawback  since  the  annexation  of  far-away 
countries  in  Central  Asia  and  on  the  confines  of  China, 
because  of  the  increasing  diflBculty  of  holding  in  proper 
check  the  officials  of  the  central  government. 

Another  great  trouble  has  arisen,  this  time  within 
the  very  ranks  of  bureaucracy.  Formerly,  at  least, 
these  officials  as  a  class  were  thoroughly  loyal  to  the 
government,  no  matter  how  corrupt  and  open  to  brib- 
ery, how  inefficient  and  averse  to  ameliorations  they 
might  be.  Nowadays  a  very  considerable  portion  of 
these  government  officials  are  drawn,  not  from  the 
ranks  of  the  higher  and  lower  nobility  as  in  the  days 
gone  by,  but  from  the  lower  strata,  from  among  the 
sous  of  former  serfs,  but  more  particularly  from  the 
priests'  sons.  The  latter  fill  to-day  an  enormous  num- 
ber both  of  the  higher  and  lower  offices,  and  a  very 
large  percentage  of  them,  while  hard-working  and  in 
a  sense  more  efficient,  are  secret  adherents  to  all  sorts 
of  revolutionary  doctrines.  This  state  of  the  case  was 
hinted  at  in  a  previous  chapt'ir.  It  constitutes  a  very 
real  danger  for  the  central  government,  all  the  more  as 


Russian  Bureaucracy  259 

these  pushing  men  cannot  be  supplanted  by  others,  per- 
haps less  diligent  but  more  loyal.  The  percentage  of 
lower-grade  nobles  among  the  government  officials  of 
Russia  has  been  steadily  declining,  owing  to  various 
reasons.  Practically,  it  is  the  "  pope's  son  "  who  to- 
day is  the  determining  factor  within  the  ranks  of  the 
Russian  bureaucracy,  and  there  is  no  telling  at  this 
hour  what  this  fact  ultimately  will  lead  to,  unless  the 
only  remedy  that  will  work  a  thorough  cure  be  adopted 
by  the  Czar  and  his  government,  namely,  the  very  con- 
siderable enlargement  of  the  sphere  of  usefulness  of  the 
provincial  chambers. 

Of  all  the  Russian  ministers  of  state  that  have  ex- 
erted influence  on  this  present  Czar  and  his  predecessor, 
it  was  Goremykin  alone  who  consistently  advocated 
this  last-mentioned  remedy.  He  it  was  who  not  only 
spoke  strongly  in  favour  of  giving  a  wider  scope  to  the 
existing  zemstva  (in  forty-six  out  of  the  seventy-one 
provinces  of  European  Russia),  but  who  also  cham- 
pioned the  introduction  of  this  institution  in  the  re- 
maining twenty-three  provinces,  these  being  the  ones 
forming  the  Western  border  districts.  How  it  comes 
that  Witte,  so  sagacious  a  man  not  in  finances  alone 
but  also  in  other  departments  of  government,  and  who 
for  ten  years  past  has  been  the  prime  mover  within 
the  whole  governmental  machinery,  has  not  officially 
adopted  this  view  of  the  matter,  is  a  thing  inexplica- 
ble at  first  blush.  But  on  closer  view  the  reasons  be- 
come palpable.     To  carry  out  unhampered  his  financial 


26o  Russia 

programme,  Witte  necessarily  had  to  stand  in  the  other 
camp.  Provincial  chambers,  no  matter  of  how  much 
benefit  to  agriculture  and  to  interior  conditions  of 
Russia,  would  have  been  a  serious  hindrance  to  his 
plans. 

The  army  of  employees  under  the  direction  of  the 
Minister  of  Finance  is  an  enormous  one.  With  a  salary 
list  of  over  three  hundred  million  roubles  he  has  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  under  his  thumb.  In  1899  the 
number  of  employees  on  the  Russian  state  railroads 
alone  figured  up  339,000;  since  then,  with  the  com- 
pletion of  the  Trans-Siberian  Railroad  and  its  branches 
this  number  has  risen  to  close  on  half  a  million.  Add- 
ing to  this  number  all  the  employees  engaged  on  the 
domanial  estates  and  in  the  government  forests,  the 
vast  crown  lands,  the  postal  and  telegraph  service,  and 
the  total  number  of  persons  employed  within  the  civil 
administration  cannot  fall  short  of  a  round  million. 
Witte  did  not  wish  to  create  a  serious  competitor  by 
furthering  the  extension  of  prerogatives  and  duties  ap- 
portioned to  the  provincial  chambers.  The  Crown  in 
Russia  contributes  since  1900  an  average  of  fift5^-seven 
per  cent,  to  the  revenues  of  the  national  government, 
derived  from  all  the  above-named  departments.  The 
fiscus  is  owner  of  two-fifths  of  all  the  soil  within  Euro- 
pean Russia,  not  counting  the  enormous  domains  and 
estates  in  Asia.  Most  of  it,  it  is  true,  is  forest  or  unim- 
proved steppe  land,  but  enough  of  it  is  left  producing 
regular  incomes  to  make  the  finance  minister  the  man- 


Russian  Bureaucracy  261 

ager  of  the  largest  territory  in  the  world.  The  state, 
again,  is  the  responsible  manager  or  owner  of  other  huge 
enterprises,  such  as  mines,  foundries,  carshops,  and  the 
monopolised  liquor  trade.  All  this  reduces  the  burden 
of  taxation  to  the  Russian  taxpayer,  and  it  fills  the 
national  treasury,  but  it  seriously  diminishes  the  field 
of  enterprise  left  for  the  individual  subject.  True  wis- 
dom would  consist  in  throwing  open  as  many  new 
avenues  of  individual  activity  to  the  subject  as  possible, 
but  we  must  not  forget  that  that  would  mean  the  en- 
tire revolutionising  of  Russia's  fiscal  and  financial 
policy.  Witte,  fond  of  power,  and  ambitious,  can 
scarcely  be  seriously  blamed  for  not  deeming  such  a 
task  his  own.  To  carry  it  through  successfully  would, 
besides,  require  very  different  statesmanlike  qualities 
than  those  Witte  has  shown  himself  possessed  of. 

It  has  here  been  taken  for  granted  that  Russian 
bureaucracy,  as  at  present  constituted,  is  a  great  evil. 
In  this  assumption  we  follow  but  the  almost  unanimous 
opinion  of  educated  Russia  itself.  Libraries  of  serious 
works  have  been  written  by  patriotic  Russians  denounc- 
ing the  present  bureaucratic  system.  The  whole  of 
Russian  literature  for  the  past  sixty  years  has  teemed 
with  uncomplimentary  reference  to  it.  A  Russian 
novel  is  sure  of  popularity  with  the  entire  reading  pul)- 
lic  of  the  empire  if  it  be  full  of  censure,  sarcasm,  or 
ironj''  at  the  expense  of  the  hated  tchinovnik  (govern- 
ment official).  But  all  this  denunciation,  it  may  be 
urged,  is  not  proof.     And  that  is  very  true.     It  will, 


262  Russia 

however,  require  but  a  very  short  argument  to  show 
that  the  popular  verdict  in  Russia  against  bureaucracy 
is  founded,  as  such  a  verdict  nearly  always  is,  on  good 
and  sufl&cient  reasons. 

The  first  point  that  tells  against  this  system  is  its 
unwieldiness.  That  fact  scarcely  needs  elaboration. 
In  the  very  nature  of  things  a  government  located  at 
the  north-western  extremity  of  a  vast  empire  compris- 
ing a  territory  covering  one-sixth  of  the  earth's  solid 
land,  distant  from  the  other  frontiers  by  from  two  thou- 
sand to  almost  six  thousand  miles,  cannot  perform  its 
functions  efficiently  and  economically.  Especially  is 
this  the  case  with  such  a  centralised  government  as  is 
the  Russian,  one  which  attempts  to  regulate  not  at  the 
local  point  where  action  is  needed,  but  at  the  central 
seat,  even  the  minutest  affairs  as  well  as  the  largest  and 
most  important.  There  is  an  incredible  amount  of 
red-tape  to  overcome,  there  are  so  many  layers  of  sub- 
ordinate authority  to  pierce  before  the  final  and  decis- 
ive head  is  reached,  that  to  accomplish  anything  there 
must  be  a  frightful  loss  of  time  and  energy.  Years  are 
often  required  before  a  small  but  urgent  change  can  be 
made,  a  new  administrative  step  can  be  taken,  or  any 
measure  of  local  interest  can  be  effected.  All  this  is 
self-evident.  It  alone  amounts  to  a  thorough  con- 
demnation of  the  present  system. 

Owing  to  the  immensity  of  the  government  machine, 
a  Russian  minister  does  not  know  personally  the  offi- 
cials serving  in  his  department  in  the  provinces.     A 


Russian  Bureaucracy  263 

Russian  public  opinion,  such  as  exists  in  Western  coun- 
tries, there  is  none,  save  on  a  few  general  questions. 
Thus,  while  the  conduct  and  official  character  of  a  gov- 
ernment employee  may  be  violently  disapproved  in  the 
district  where  he  serves,  and  while  certain  acts  or 
measures  of  the  government  may  be  clearly  harmful  in 
a  certain  locality  and  generally  recognised  as  such, 
these  local  opinions  and  convictions  will  scarcely  ever 
get  to  the  knowledge  of  the  central  government.  In 
that  way  they  remain  ineffective.  Thousands  of  in- 
competent, corrupt,  or  otherwise  grossly  derelict  officials 
remain  in  their  places  and  ascend  the  government  lad- 
der in  due  time,  until  they  reach  one  of  the  very  highest 
rungs,  simply  because  the  facts  concerning  them  have 
never  come  to  the  ears  of  their  chiefs  in  St.  Petersburg. 
The  debasing  influence  of  all  this  on  the  individual 
official  needs  no  pointing  out. 

Another  outgrowth  of  this  system  is  the  wide  spread 
of  official  corruption.  Nothing  is  done  in  Russia  to- 
day, any  more  than  it  could  be  done  in  the  past,  without 
"  greasing  the  palm,"  as  the  popular  phrase  goes,  of 
the  officials  to  whose  province  the  matter  belongs.  It 
is  true  that  in  one  or  two  departments  this  corruption 
is  no  longer  carried  on  on  so  large  a  scale  as  it  was 
several  generations  ago.  Witte's  department,  for  one, 
shows  decided  improvement  in  this  respect.  But  the 
fact  remains  that  with  the  single  exception  of  the  higher 
and  highest  courts  of  justice,  corruption  and  bribery 
are  regular  features  of  Russian  administration.     Good 


264  Russia 

and  impartial  judges  of  the  situation  claim  that  since 
the  days  antedating  the  reform  era  of  Alexander  II. 
corruption  has  never  been  so  widespread  as  it  is  under 
the  present  ruler.  The  construction  of  the  Trans-Si- 
berian Railroad  and  its  branches  was  accompanied  with 
fraudulent  practices  which  cost  the  government  several 
hundreds  of  million  roubles.  The  commissary  de- 
partment committed,  during  the  period  of  the  Boxer 
troubles  in  China,  a  series  of  embezzlements  as  out- 
rageous and  unscrupulous  as  were  those  during  the 
war  with  Turkey,  in  1 876-1 877. 

Intimately  connected  with  the  peculiar  nature  of  the 
present  system  is  the  divergency  in  general  policy  and 
methods  followed  in  the  different  provinces  of  the  em- 
pire. This  divergency  goes  so  far  that  it  is  a  standing 
feature  to  see  one  ministry  waging  war  upon  another, 
defeating  those  very  aims  of  one  department  which  have 
found  most  favour  with  the  friends  of  reform.  In  this 
respect  it  is  proper  to  speak  of  "  decentralisation." 
These  facts  are  notorious.  To  the  non-Russian  world 
there  comes,  now  and  then,  a  piece  of  news  which,  like 
a  flash,  lights  up  the  general  situation.  The  m.anner, 
for  instance,  in  which  the  Kishineff  massacre  of  Jews 
was  organised,  not  so  long  ago,  and  the  way  in  which 
in  that  matter  one  department  of  the  government  was 
holding  very  different  views  from  the  other,  and  giving 
effect  to  these  views,  is  a  striking  illustration.  During 
the  court  proceedings  following  in  the  wake  of  the  mas- 
sacre itself,  it  was  brought  out  very  plainly  that  the 


Russian  Bureaucracy  265 

Minister  of  the  Interior,  M.  de  Plehve,  had  prepared  at 
long  range  this  whole  anti-Jewish  uprising  through  a 
number  of  his  subordinate  police  officials,  some  of  them 
sent  for  that  very  purpose  from  St.  Petersburg.  Again, 
in  the  matter  of  university  discipline  and  university 
riots,  the  governor-general  of  such  an  important  pro- 
vince as  Moscow  for  years  took  an  entirely  different 
view  and  enforced  an  entirely  different  practice  from  the 
one  followed  in  St.  Petersburg  or  Odessa.  These  cases 
might  be  multiplied,  but  the  above  will  suffice  to  indi- 
cate the  general  trend  of  this  evil. 

And  in  the  main,  the  cause  of  this  evil  is  the  impossi- 
bility for  a  minister  or  the  Czar  to  control  the  actions 
and  the  general  policy  of  subordinate  government  or- 
gans. This,  again,  is  due  to  the  aforementioned  un- 
wieldiness  of  the  whole  machine. 

It  is  but  in  consonance  with  frail  human  nature  that 
an  immense  body  of  practically  irresponsible  govern- 
ment officials  is  averse  to  reform  of  any  kind.  This 
general  law  is  aggravated  in  the  case  of  Russia  by 
national  indolence,  and  thus  it  comes  about  that  rarely, 
if  ever,  the  real  wants  of  the  population  are  taken  into 
serious  consideration  by  the  bureaucracy.  In  fact, 
given  the  present  system,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  even  an 
especially  well-disposed  official  can  accomplish  much 
good  of  his  own  volition.  Nor  are  such  efforts  at  all 
encouraged  by  his  superiors.  They  at  once  scent  in 
such  a  policy  an  infringement  of  their  own,  and  suspect 
such  a  white  raven  of  sinister  designs. 


266  Russia 

The  rivalry  between  the  central  government  and  the 
provincial  chambers  was  pointed  out  before.  It  was 
due  to  it,  for  instance,  that  in  many  recent  cases  the 
organised  efforts  of  either  or  both  to  fight  a  public  evil 
came  too  late  to  benefit  the  masses.  Neither  of  the  two 
wanted  to  yield  to  or  to  co-operate  with  the  other. 
The  latest  instance  of  the  kind  was  the  scurvy 
plague  in  the  Eastern  provinces,  which  during  the 
last  two  years  has  ravaged  among  the  poorer  classes. 
The  widespread  suffering  it  caused  was  admittedly 
due  to  an  insufficiency  of  cereal  nourishment.  Both 
central  and  provincial  governments  were  willing  to 
help,  but  the  wrangling  that  ensued  between  these 
two  organs  was  so  bitter  and  led  to  such  a  loss  of  time 
that  meanwhile  thousands  of  lives  were  sacrificed  need- 
lessly. ■ 

Fiscality  in  Russia  is  assuming  larger  and  ever  larger 
proportions.  At  present  the  question  is  being  seriously 
considered  whether  it  will  not  be  wise,  in  view  of  the 
great  revenues  annually  drawn  from  the  government 
liquor  monopoly,  to  also  convert  the  whole  tobacco  and 
sugar  beet  cultures  into  government  monopolies.  This, 
no  doubt,  would  further  increase  the  revenues  of  the 
central  government,  but  it  would  also  lead  to  an  al- 
most complete  realisation  of  state  socialistic  conditions. 
Witte  himself  has  repeatedly  given  expression  to  his 
conviction  that  the  bringing  about  of  such  conditions  is 
desirable.  Sound  students  of  social  economy  will  differ 
from  him.     Certainly  the   further  restriction  of  indi- 


Russian  Bureaucracy  267 

vidual  enterprise  in  Russia  will  intensify  the  present 
unhealthy  state  of  economics. 

The  efifects  of  the  recently  introduced  government 
monopoly  in  the  distilling  and  sale  of  spirits  and  other 
alcoholic  beverages,  so  far  as  these  can  be  discerned, 
are  not  very  encouraging,  save  in  the  one  fact  of  in- 
creasing the  government  revenues.  The  monopoly  has 
ruined  many  thousands  of  small  dealers,  distillers,  inn- 
keepers, and  owners  of  village  dramshops;  this  has  in- 
creased b}'-  so  many  the  army  of  vagrants  and  paupers 
within  the  empire.  The  monopoly  has  also  deprived 
the  cities,  towns,  and  villages  of  a  large  and  important 
part  of  their  revenues,  in  many  cases  this  particular 
revenue  being  the  largest  item  in  the  municipal  or  vil- 
lage household.  The  city  of  Moscow  sent  a  formal 
complaint  to  the  central  government,  setting  forth  the 
fact  of  its  financial  loss  and  asking  for  an  adequate  re- 
imbursement, the  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand  roubles 
annually  being  suggested.  The  petition  was  rejected; 
so,  too,  were  those  of  hundreds  of  smaller  towns  and 
villages.  Similar  losses  in  revenue,  owing  to  this  same 
monopoly,  are  reported  from  the  southern  provinces  of 
Prussia  and  the  Caucasus,  the  important  and  growing 
viniculture  of  those  districts  being  most  unfavourably 
affected.  In  the  Baltic  provinces,  again,  six  hundred 
rural  inns,  usually  the  only  shelter  for  the  night  open 
to  carters  and  draymen,  were  forced  to  close  their  doors. 
The  sale  of  beer,  the  favourite  beverage  there,  has  been 
restricted  to  the  government  stores. 


268  Russia 

With  all  that,  the  consumption  of  liquor,  beer,  and 
wine  has  not  decreased  since  the  introduction  of  the 
monopoly;  quite  the  reverse.  Nor  has  drunkenness 
diminished.  One  per  cent,  of  the  net  returns  from  the 
sale  of  all  alcoholic  beverages  is  being  devoted  by  the 
finance  minister  to  promote  the  temperance  movement. 
But  while  this  is  done,  his  subordinates  in  the  provinces, 
as  well  as  those  of  the  other  departments,  discourage  in 
every  way  the  spread  of  this  same  temperance  move- 
ment, and  place  hindrances  of  every  kind  in  the  way  of 
the  temperance  societies.  As  far  as  statistics  go,  every 
budget  since  the  introduction  of  the  monopoly  shows 
rapidly  increasing  sales  of  spirits,  and  for  the  last  year 
the  excess  of  such  sales  over  the  figures  of  ten  years 
ago  is  fully  thirty  per  cent. 

The  growth  of  fiscalism  and  of  interference  on  the 
part  of  the  central  government  in  every  sphere  of  pri- 
vate and  public  life  is  very  noticeable.  Everything  is 
turned  to  the  advantage  of  the  state,  that  is,  of  its  re- 
ceipts, without  consideration  for  the  real  needs  of  the 
population  at  large.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  duties  on 
iron  and  agricultural  machinery  are  so  high  that  the 
peasant  to-day  cannot  afford  to  put  tires  on  the  wheels 
of  his  waggons  and  carts,  and  that  the  Russian  has  to 
pay  double  the  price  for  agricultural  machinery  which 
his  competitor  to  the  West  pays.  The  importation  of 
fertilisers  is  likewise  made  impossible  b}'  a  prohibitive 
duty,  while  the  exportation  of  home-made  fertilisers  is 
in  every  way  encouraged.     This,  in  a  country  sufiferiug 


Russian  Bureaucracy  269 

severely  in  its  formerly  most  fertile  provinces  from  an 
exhausted  soil,  is  a  fair  sample  of  the  short-sighted 
fiscalism  of  the  Russian  government.  The  inefficient 
management  of  the  railroads,  particularly  their  freight 
departments,  is  another  burden  resting  on  both  agri- 
culture and  industry.  Frequently  merchants  or  land- 
owners receive  consignments  by  rail  from  four  to  six 
weeks  too  late. 

The  present  peculiar  system  of  superintending  the 
universities  of  the  country  dates  from  the  seventies.  It 
put  the  appointment  of  the  whole  teaching  corps,  as 
well  as  the  entire  interior  management,  into  the  hands 
of  the  government.  The  two  jingo  leaders  in  Moscow, 
Katkoff  and  Leontyeff,  were  responsible  for  this  change. 
During  the  reign  of  Alexander  III.,  the  shackling  of 
the  universities  was  completed.  The  students  are  all 
under  police  surveillance,  all  student  affiliations  and 
fraternities  of  whatever  nature  are  prohibited  and  of- 
fenders rendered  liable  to  transportation  to  Siberia, 
while  all  the  able  and  independent  leaders  of  thought 
have  since  been  dismissed  from  their  professorial  chairs 
and  supplanted  by  weak-kneed  mediocrities.  One  of 
the  most  shining  lights  of  modern  chemistry.  Prof. 
Mendelyefif,  has  been  transferred  to  a  post  in  the  Im- 
perial office  of  weights  and  measures.  The  independ- 
ence of  the  courts — for  long  a  green  oasis  in  the  arid 
desert  of  bureaucratism — has  of  late  years  been  more 
and  more  interfered  with.  The  hours  of  impartial  jur- 
isdiction in  the  higher  courts  of  Russia  are  evidently 


2/0  Russia 

numbered.  In  1889  all  the  justices  of  tbe  peace  were, 
one  fine  morning,  by  a  special  ukase  of  Alexander  III., 
dismissed  from  office  and  succeeded  by  ' '  Rural  District 
Captains,"  men  of  no  legal  education  whatever.  The 
reasons  for  this  sweeping  change  have  never  been  made 
public,  but  its  effects  have  unquestionably  been  very 
injurious  to  the  cause  of  justice. 

Of  these  ' '  Rural  District  Captains ' '  there  are  at 
present  2012,  distributed  in  the  thirty-six  interior  pro- 
vinces. They  exercise  exclusively  the  functions  of 
lower  judges  and  arbitrators  between  the  peasantry, 
the  government,  and  the  higher  classes,  and  their 
position  is  a  most  important  one. 

How  cumbrous  and  slow  is  the  governmental  ma- 
chine in  Russia  results,  among  other  things,  from  the 
failure  to  work  up  for  public  use  the  figures  and  facts 
ascertained  by  the  last  census  of  1897.  A  huge  com- 
mission has  been  struggling  with  this  mass  of  material 
for  the  past  seven  years,  involving  an  expense  to  the 
country  of  four  million  roubles,  and  until  the  present 
only  about  one-tenth  of  its  work  has  been  accomplished. 
To  obtain  concessions  for  the  publication  of  newspapers, 
the  operation  of  printing  establishments,  and,  in  fact, 
of  any  other  kind  of  shop,  factory,  etc.,  requires  an 
average  of  several  years,  and  at  every  stage  of  its  slow 
progress  through  the  various  channels  of  the  govern- 
ment the  petitioner  must  "  grease  the  palm  "  of  a  score 
of  officials.  Russian  newspaper  editors  have  made  this 
feature  of  the  internal  administration  of  their  country  a 


Russian  Bureaucracy  271 

standing  subject  of  pleasantry  and  racy  humour.  In 
one  of  the  leading  sheets,  a  couple  of  years  ago,  a  de- 
cree could  be  read  in  fat  type  setting  forth  the  all-im- 
portant fact  that  "  His  Imperial  Majesty  the  Emperor" 
and  so  forth,  had  granted  his  "  all-highest  permission  " 
to  absolve  the  pupil  Sinaida  Koshevnikoff  (follows 
class,  school,  town,  district,  and  province,  together 
with  the  date)  from  a  certain  branch  of  instruction,  be- 
cause of  the  young  girl's  poor  health.  The  humour  in 
this  consisted  in  the  fact  that  by  the  time  this  "all- 
highest  permission  ' '  was  given  and  published  the  girl 
had  finished  her  studies  at  this  same  school  about  two 
years  before.  The  case,  however,  was  typical  of  Rus- 
sian conditions. 

An  amusing  calculation  was  published  some  time 
ago  in  a  Moscow  paper.  It  set  forth  that  in  case  any 
member  of  the  Imperial  ministry  had  to  undertake  a 
trip  abroad,  the  officials  of  the  whole  empire  had  to  be 
apprised  of  it  by  no  less  than  seventeen  thousand 
circular  letters. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  the  opposing  views  and 
practices  held  by  different  departments  of  the  govern- 
ment. An  illuminating  instance  of  this  may  be  cited. 
All  through  the  long  regime  of  M.  Bogolepofif,  the  Min- 
ister of  Public  Instruction,  discipline  in  the  educational 
institutions  under  his  charge  was  of  the  most  rigid  and 
repressive.  At  the  same  time  all  those  schools  and 
colleges  under  the  supervision  of  M.  de  Witte,  the 
finance  minister  (and  their  number  comprised  many  of 


272  Russia 

the  most  important),  were  governed  in  a  most  liberal 
spirit,  and  discipline  in  them  was,  if  it  erred  in  any 
direction,  rather  too  lax.  Bogolepoff  was,  it  may  be 
remembered,  finally  murdered  by  one  of  his  exasper- 
ated victims. 

In  conversation  with  the  thoughtful  Russians  of 
every  type  the  opinion  is  invariably  expressed  that  an 
empire  so  vast  cannot  be  otherwise  ruled  than  by  a 
strong  monarchical  form  of  government.  Many  of 
them  add  that  this  necessarily  means  centralistic  as 
well.  In  Western  countries  opinion  seems  to  be  very 
divided  on  this  score.  But  it  would  seem  indeed  that 
for  a  nation  composed,  as  has  been  shown,  of  so  many 
heterogeneous  elements  and  on  such  a  low  level  of  po- 
litical education,  monarchy  is  the  only  form  possible. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  at  the  present  stage  a  parliament- 
ary form  of  government  would  not  be  feasible  for  Rus- 
sia, and  a  republican  still  less  so. 

It  is  another  question  whether  this  monarchic  form 
ought  to  be  accompanied  by  such  strong  centralistic 
tendencies  as  at  present  prevail.  In  the  foregoing  we 
have  seen  a  number  of  most  serious  evils  growing  out 
of  this  centralism.  Some  others  could  be  further  ad- 
duced. And  on  the  face  of  the  facts  it  would  appear 
that  that  form  of  government  would  be  best  adapted  to 
the  real  interests  of  Russia  which  would  put  in  the 
hands  of  clean  and  able  provincial  administrative 
bodies,  chosen,  perhaps,  partly  by  the  population  and 
partly  by  the  central  government,  that  amount  of  dis- 


Russian  Bureaucracy  273 

cretionary  power  in  the  matter  of  the  raising  of  taxes 
and  effecting  local  improvements  and  local  legislation, 
which  would  best  suit  local  needs  and  conditions,  re- 
serving at  the  same  time  for  the  central  government 
supreme  power  not  only  in  rectifying  serious  mistakes 
made  by  such  local  bodies,  but  also  to  direct  the  desti- 
nies of  the  nation  in  its  relations  to  foreign  countries 
and  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole.  Such  a  system,  it 
would  seem,  could  not  be  too  difficult  to  discover  and 
put  in  practice,  provided  the  task  were  honestly  under- 
taken and  as  honestly  carried  out.  So  far,  however, 
no  Russian  statesman  has  arisen  able  to  convince  his 
master  of  the  necessity  of  such  a  great  change. 

IvOris  MelikofiF,  summoned  by  Alexander  II.  during 
the  last  year  of  that  well-meaning  and  able  monarch 
(and,  by  the  way,  Melikoflf  was  an  Armenian,  not  a 
national  Russian),  drew  up  a  scheme  of  reform  which 
ultimately  might  have  led  up  to  such  a  sweeping 
change  if— a  very  unfortunate  "  if" — the  Czar  had  not 
been  murdered  before  the  ukase  providing  for  this  first 
beginning  in  reform  had  been  signed  and  issued.  Nich- 
olas II.  has  neither  brains  nor  independence  of  charac- 
ter enough  to  conceive  of  his  own  accord  and  then  carry 
out  such  a  one  or  a  similar  measure.  On  the  contrary, 
he  has  been,  since  his  accession  to  the  throne,  under 
the  more  or  less  complete  domination  of  a  few  chief  ad- 
visers, possessed  of  strong  will-power  of  their  own  and 
imbued  with  reactionary  spirit.  In  this  respect  the 
Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod,  Pobyedonostseflf,   has 

i3 


2  74  Russia 

been  his  evil  genius  during  the  ten  years  of  his  reign. 
And  the  latter  more  recently  has  been  strongly  backed 
up  by  M.  de  Plehve,  while  M.  de  Witte  has,  as  we  have 
seen,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  generally  refrained  from 
actively  interfering  in  the  political  administration  of 
the  empire,  keeping  himself  more  or  less  strictly  to  the 
task  of  realising  his  ambitious  financial  and  industrial 
programme. 

To  enforce  such  a  thorough  political  change  as  we 
have  outlined  in  the  above,  Russian  bureaucracy  would, 
of  course,  have  to  be  overcome  and  greatly  modified. 
It  is  probable  that  this  would  mean  the  dismissal  of  the 
majority  of  the  present  body  of  officials.  Inured  to  the 
old  system,  they  would  be  mentally  and  morally  unable 
to  accommodate  themselves  to  the  new  one.  And  such 
wholesale  dismissal  would  naturally  bring  about,  for 
a  time  at  least,  much  embarrassment.  The  Russian 
name  for  bureaucracy,  tchin,  is  a  Chinese  word,  and  the 
sign  that  stands  for  it,  or  rather  the  hieroglyphic,  is 
likewise  of  Chinese  origin.  Both  were  brought  into 
Russia  by  the  Mongolian  dynasty  of  Djenghis  Khan, 
which  ruled  the  Slavs  for  centuries.  The  whole  sys- 
tem, too,  is  Chinese,  which  means  rigid  and  unpro- 
gressive.  This  alone  would  seem  to  show  what  a  hard 
task  the  man  would  have  on  his  hands  who  would  un- 
dertake to  modernise  and  liberalise  the  Russian  tchin. 
But  it  could  be  done  by  any  czar  with  backbone  enough 
to  stick  to  his  idea,  though  he  would  need  to  have  the 
single-hearted  support  of  an  able  statesman,  and  he 


Russian  Bureaucracy  275 

would  likewise  have  to  be  strong  enough  to  eliminate 
from  his  council  of  advisers  all  counter-currents. 

One  of  the  Chinese  features  of  Russian  bureaucracy 
seems  to  be  a  contradiction  of  the  rest  of  the  system, 
namely,  its  lack  of  stability.  But  that  is  meant  not  of 
the  system  itself  but  of  the  positions  and  the  place  of 
residence  to  which  each  official  is  assigned.  The  pre- 
vailing system  consists  in  leaving  no  official  long  enough 
in  any  post  to  assimilate  himself  with  the  population 
and  with  its  thought  and  wants.  The  underlying  idea 
probably  being  to  prevent  a  loosening  of  the  ties  that 
bind  the  official,  not  to  the  people,  but  to  its  ruler  and 
its  autocratic  government.  The  all-pervading  hatred 
felt  by  the  whole  nation  for  its  corps  of  officials  has 
probably  something  to  do  with  the  above  fact,  making 
as  it  does  merely  a  "  stranger  dwelling  in  tents,"  a  man 
unidentified  with  the  most  vital  needs  of  the  population 
amongst  whom  he  resides,  out  of  every  office-holder. 
Else  the  bitter  feeling  of  contempt  and  aversion  enter- 
tained for  him  by  the  nation  as  a  whole  could  scarcely 
be  explained. 

If  one  should  attempt  to  draw  a  parallel,  so  far  as  the 
innate  political  forces  are  concerned,  between  Russia 
and  either  England  or  the  United  States,  there  would 
be  no  end  of  differences.  But  the  most  pregnant,  per- 
haps, is  that  in  Russia  these  forces  are  entirely  concen- 
trated in  the  hands  of  the  government,  ignoring  almost 
wholly  those  of  the  people  and  of  the  individual,  while 
in  English-speaking  countries,  with  their  old  heirloom 


276  Russia 

of  Anglo-Saxon  political  development,  these  political 
forces  are  held  in  the  hands  of  the  people  themselves 
and  but  sparingly  delegated,  and  usually  only  for  a 
brief  term  of  years,  to  self-chosen  or — rather  the  ex- 
ception than  the  rule — to  hereditary  leaders  or  rulers. 
While,  therefore,  in  Russia  all  individual  initiative  and 
enterprise  is  hampered  or  killed  in  the  bud,  rendering 
more  and  more  difficult  the  gradual  growth  of  the  na- 
tion, viewed  as  individuals,  to  independence  and  ma- 
terial prosperity,  the  Anglo-Saxon  system  must  have 
and  does  have  precisely  the  opposite  effect,  educating 
each  single  member  of  the  commonwealth  to  higher  and 
more  efficient  effiart,  thus  producing  an  invincible 
whole,  although  (as  a  correlative  fact)  the  brute  effect 
and  the  impetus  of  the  masses,  led  by  a  single  will, 
must  be  greater.  This  shows  most  clearly  when  com- 
parison is  made  between  the  foreign  policy  of  Russia 
on  the  one  side,  easily  grasped  and  concentrated  in 
the  one  autocratic  hand,  and  that  of  either  the  United 
States  or  England,  depending  as  it  does  almost  wholly 
on  public  opinion  and  its  fluctuating  moods,  therefore 
more  or  less  vacillating. 

Such  parallel  or  comparison,  however,  is  but  an  idle 
amusement.  The  hard,  concrete  facts  stare  Russia  in 
the  face.  How  will  she  square  in  the  long  run  her 
internal  weakness  with  her  external  aggressiveness? 
That  is  the  question. 


CHAPTER  XII 

CHIEF  REFORMS  NEEDED 

The  Desirability  of  Abolishing  the  Mir  Conceded  by  Nearly 
All  Thinking  Russians— To  Expand  the  Scope  and  Powers 
of  the  Provincial  Chambers  Likewise  Held  of  Chief  Im- 
portance— Nicholas  II.  and  his  Prime  Advisers,  however, 
Have  so  far  Strenuously  Opposed  the  Last-Named  Reform 
Measure — Facts  as  to  the  Gradual  Curtailment  of  Pre- 
rogatives Originally  Granted  these  Provincial  Representa- 
tive Bodies  —  The  Principal  Reason  for  This :  Fear  of 
Abridging  the  Czarish  Power — Views  of  Alexander  II.  on 
this  Matter  Expressed  to  the  Russian  Ambassador  in  Lon- 
don— At  Present  the  Provincial  Chambers  are  the  Mere 
Shadows  of  their  Former  Selves — The  Problem  of  Provin- 
cial Autonomy,  as  AflFecting,  Respectively,  the  Purely 
Russian  and  the  Western  Border  Provinces — Instances  Il- 
lustrating the  Evils  Wrought  by  the  Prevailing  Tendency 
towards  Uniformity— Provincial  and  Local  Autonomy  the 
Goal  Striven  for  by  Both  Russian  and  Non-Russian  Sub- 
jects of  the  Empire — The  Cossacks  Strikingly  Show  the 
Great  Good  which  such  Semi-Independence  from  the  Cen- 
tral Government  and  its  Organs  Would  Bring  to  the 
Nation  as  a  Whole — A  Parallel  with  Russia  at  the  Close  of 
the  Crimean  War 

IN  the  preceding  parts  of  this  book  frequent  reference 
has  been  made  to  those  two  pecuHarly  Russian  in- 
stitutions, the  mir  (village  community)  and  the  zemstvo 
(provincial  chamber).  A  more  circumstantial  treat- 
ment of  this  subject  seems,  however,  required,  forming 

277 


278  Russia 

as  it  does  the  very  core  of  Russia's  internal  political 
condition.  To  abolish  the  one  and  to  enlarge  the  other 
seem  things  absolutely  required  to  effect  a  radical 
change  making  for  the  gradual  betterment  of  the  po- 
litical and  social  situation  of  the  masses. 

During  the  ten  years  elapsed  since  Nicholas  II.  as- 
cended the  throne,  nothing  has  been  done  to  improve 
matters  in  this  respect.  Nay,  so  far  as  the  zemstva  are 
concerned,  there  has  been  steady  decline.  Shortly  after 
the  accession  of  the  present  Czar,  the  leading  provincial 
chambers  of  the  empire  addressed  petitions  to  the 
throne  praying  for  a  restitution  of  their  former  powers, 
and  citing  an  abundance  of  important  and  cogent  facts 
in  support  of  this.  All  the  other  provincial  chambers, 
without  committing  themselves  to  formal  petition,  de- 
clared publicly  their  entire  consonance  with  the  purport 
of  the  latter.  Nicholas  II.  and  his  cabinet  curtly  re- 
jected all  petitions  of  this  kind,  and  since  then  have  in 
every  way  discouraged  agitation  in  favour  of  an  en- 
largement of  provincial  prerogatives.  Not  long  ago 
the  zemstvo  of  Tver  renewed  their  petition,  only  to 
be  harshly  punished  for  doing  so.  The  chief  advisers 
to  the  Crown  have  all  along  pronounced  in  favour  of 
stricter  centralisation,  although  the  fact  has  been  and  is 
staring  them  in  the  face  that  growing  centralisation 
has  wrought  incalculable  harm  everywhere  to  local 
and  provincial  interests. 

Let  us  marshal  the  main  facts  that  bear  on  this 
matter. 


Chief  Reforms  Needed  279 

M.  de  Witte,  in  a  weighty  memorial  written  by  him 
in  1901,  himself  furnishes  all  the  arsenal  of  material  re- 
quired to  demonstrate  very  clearly  the  strong  advis- 
ability of  widening  the  scope  and  powers  of  the  pro- 
vincial chambers,  although  his  own  argument  in  that 
very  interesting  document  winds  up  with  a  plea  for 
"unresisting  obedience"  on  the  part  of  the  Russian 
subject.  This  is  all  the  more  extraordinary  as  the 
whole  trend  of  his  thought  in  the  foregoing  part  of  the 
memorial  makes  in  the  other  direction.  The  conclusion 
he  arrives  at  and  the  advice  he  gives  in  the  end  read 
more  like  an  afterthought  ad  hoc  than  anything  else. 

Regarding  the  mir  nothing  exists  in  recent  Russian 
publications  either  of  an  official  or  unofficial  character 
which  could  be  interpreted  as  a  well-balanced  advocacy 
of  the  continuance  of  that  institution.  The  best  Russian 
authorities  on  the  subject,  Kostomarofif  (the  historian), 
the  brothers  Aksakofif  and  Alexander  Herzen,  pro- 
nounce uniformly  and  strongly  against  it.  We  have 
seen  before  that  a  movement  has  been  afoot  in  Russia 
for  a  number  of  years  past  for  the  abolishment,  first,  of 
joint  tax  responsibility  of  the  rural  communes,  and 
next,  of  joint  ownership  in  land,  and  that  the  govern- 
ment itself  has  apparently  been  brought  around  to  ac- 
cept this  as  a  desirable  reform.  The  movement  of  late, 
though,  seems  to  have  been  lost  once  more  in  the 
morass  of  bureaucracy. 

It  is  of  passing  interest  to  note  that  it  took  a  German 
traveller  in  Russia,  Baron  Haxthausen,  fifty  years  ago, 


28o  Russia 

to  discover  for  the  Russians  that  the  mir  was  really  a 
national  and  praiseworthy  institution.  Up  to  that  time 
it  had  been  generally  recognised  in  Russia  itself  that 
the  mir  was  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  on  the  contrary  a 
great  impediment  in  Russia's  road  toward  saner  forms 
of  government  and  more  generally  distributed  pro- 
sperity. And  Haxthausen  had  based  his  fallacy  on 
entirely  inadequate  data,  since  controverted  completely. 
In  the  manifesto  published  by  Alexander  II.,  creat- 
ing, on  March  31,  1863,  the  provincial  chambers  as  the 
"  Orderly  organs  of  local  self-government,"  that  mon- 
arch designates  the  latter  as  the  basis  of  the  entire  social 
structure.  That  instrument  continued :  ' '  We  reserve 
to  ourselves  the  right,  as  soon  as  practice  has  inured 
the  population  sufficiently  for  the  purpose,  to  take  all 
further  and  necessary  steps  for  the  greater  development 
of  these  organs."  A  fortnight  later,  on  April  14th,  the 
Imperial  Chancellor  of  Russia,  Prince  Gortchakoff, 
stated  in  a  dispatch  to  the  Russian  ambassador  in  Lon- 
don: "  The  system  thus  adopted  by  our  most  serene 
monarch  contains  in  itself  the  germ  which  with  time 
and  experience  is  to  be  further  developed.  Its  purport 
is  to  lead  to  administrative  autonomy,  basing  itself 
upon  provincial  and  municipal  institutions,  such  as 
took  their  rise  in  England  and  proved  there  the  founda- 
tions of  national  greatness  and  well-being."  In  the 
same  sense  the  Czar  in  August  of  the  same  year  spoke 
to  the  Russian  statesman,  Milyutin,  He  said  he  was 
not   averse  to  a  representative   form   of  government. 


Chief  Reforms  Needed  281 

but  that  the  Russians  were  not  yet  ripe  for  a  consti- 
tution. 

These,  then,  were  the  avowed  views  and  convictions 
of  Russia's  government  forty-one  years  ago.  It  has 
been  briefly  mentioned  before  that  soon  after  the 
Russian  bureaucracy  took  up  the  fight  against  these 
new  ideas,  and  that  by  hook  or  crook  they  finally 
triumphed. 

One  by  one  the  powers  of  the  provincial  chambers 
were  curtailed  or  abrogated.  In  the  year  following, 
1864,  the  first  steps  in  this  direction  were  taken;  the 
independence  of  these  bodies  was  limited.  Their  reso- 
lutions could  now  be  inhibited  b)''  either  the  governor- 
general  of  the  province  or  by  the  minister  of  the  interior. 
Gradually  this  was  done  more  and  more  frequently. 
By  a  resolution  of  the  Imperial  Senate,  passed  on  De- 
cember 16,  1866,  the  governors-general  were  empowered 
to  refuse  their  sanction  to  the  election  of  any  persons  by 
the  provincial  chambers  whose  "  ideas  and  principles 
were  suspected  or  proved  to  be  noxious  to  the  interests 
of  the  state."  The  year  after  the  disciplinary  powers 
of  the  presidents  of  provincial  chambers  (so-called 
Marshals  of  the  Nobility)  were  greatly  enlarged.  The 
chambers  themselves  thereby  were  brought  entirely 
under  the  control  of  these  last-named  officials  and  of 
the  governors-general.  In  the  year  1879  the  gover- 
nors-generals were  granted  the  right  to  remove  forth- 
with any  officials  appointed  by  the  provincial  chambers 
on  belief  or  suspicion  of  their  lack  of  "good  intentions." 


282  Russia 

These  provincial  officials  soon  after  were  made  almost 
entirely  dependent  on  the  central  government. 

Parallel  with  this  the  competency  of  the  provincial 
chambers  was  diminished,  step  by  step.  By  the  law  of 
November  21,  1866,  their  powers  of  taxation  were 
limited  greatly.  They  were  deprived  of  their  former 
control  of  the  provincial  school  systems,  a  process  re- 
quiring successive  steps  until  the  year  1874.  Similarly 
provincial  legislation  in  favour  of  improving  the  con- 
ditions of  the  peasantry  was  hampered  and  finally  done 
away  with.  All  the  memorials  and  petitions  of  the 
provincial  chambers,  pointing  out  that  they  alone  pos- 
sessed the  required  knowledge  of  rural  local  conditions  to 
benefit  the  prosperity  of  the  peasantry,  met  with  either 
no  response  or  one  wholly  based  on  formal  objections. 

Most  persistent  and  harmful  was,  however,  the  policy 
adopted  by  the  central  government  in  preventing  joint 
action  of  the  provincial  chambers.  Such  joint  action 
had  been  described  in  the  original  law  creating  pro- 
vincial chambers  as  one  of  the  prime  desiderata. 
Nevertheless,  since  1864  it  became  the  settled  policy 
of  St.  Petersburg  to  discourage  by  every  means  united 
provincial  effort,  such  as,  to  accomplish  lasting  good, 
was  necessary  in  cases  of  widespread  epidemics  and 
diseases  of  man  or  beast;  in  the  construction  of  bridges, 
roads,  and  all  other  undertakings  requiring  co-opera- 
tion on  the  part  of  several  provinces.  Even  joint  pro- 
vincial researches  in  times  of  famine  or  agricultural 
depression,  and  such  like  matters,  were  prohibited. 


Chief  Reforms  Needed  283 

Provincial  press  matters  were  regulated  in  the  same 
spirit.  At  first,  the  proceedings  of  the  provincial 
chambers  could  be  printed  without  let  or  hindrance; 
provincial  newspapers  were  permitted  to  discuss  purely 
provincial  aflfairs  without  interference  by  the  censor. 
Much  interest  in  such  reports,  debates,  and  discus- 
sions was  shown  by  the  whole  nation,  and  the  chief 
newspapers  in  St.  Petersburg  vied  with  those  in  the 
provinces  in  giving  attention  to  questions  of  internal 
economic  reform.  Then  came  repression,  curtailment, 
and  finally  entire  prohibition.  The  provincial  press  as 
such  ceased  to  exist,  and  the  road  towards  internal  re- 
form so  auspiciously  taken  came  to  a  dead  line. 

The  root,  of  course,  of  this  strange  policy  on  the  part 
of  the  government  was  dark  suspicion.  The  idea  had 
gained  prevalence  in  St.  Petersburg  that  to  encourage 
provincial  independence  or  autonomy,  to  permit  practi- 
cal freedom  of  the  press  in  the  interior,  and  to  allow 
these  provincial  representative  bodies  to  join  hands  for 
common  purposes,  meant  the  furtherance  of  revolu- 
tionary ideas  and  practices,  meant  also  the  abridgment 
of  Czarish  power.  With  that  the  doom  of  the  provin- 
cial chamber  was  virtually  sealed. 

Alexander  II.  in  1880  made  up  his  mind  once  more 
to  restore  the  provincial  chambers  to  their  old  powers. 
The  reform  minister  he  called  for  the  purpose,  Loris 
Melikoflf,  at  once  received  a  perfect  shower  of  petitions 
and  memorials  from  all  over  the  empire,  in  token  of 
general  joy  felt  at  this  movement.     Of  greatest  weight 


284  Russia 

with  him  and  his  imperial  master  was  the  petition  sent 
by  twenty-five  of  the  leading  citizens  of  Moscow.  It 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  at  this  particular  time,  in 
1880,  Nihilistic  conspiracies  were  rife.  Several  of  the 
passages  in  this  document  are  even  to-day  of  interest. 

The  progress  of  revolutionary  activity  [it  said]  is  due  mainly 
to  ttie  enforced  silence  of  the  provincial  representative  bodies. 
.  .  .  Russian  society  is  becoming  firmer  and  firmer  in  the 
conviction  that  an  empire  as  vast  as  ours,  with  its  complicated 
social  life,  cannot  be  exclusively  administered  by  officials  of 
the  central  government.  .  .  .  The  only  means  to  help  our 
country  out  of  its  present  internal  difficulties  lies  in  the  sum- 
moning of  an  independent  assembly  of  representatives  of  the 
various  provinces,  in  the  share  granted  to  such  an  assembly  in 
the  governing  of  the  nation,  and  in  the  careful  drafting  of  an 
instrument  guaranteeing  to  the  nation  personal  inviolability 
and  liberty  of  thought  and  of  word. 

It  is  stated  on  reliable  authority  that  this  particular 
petition  determined  Alexander  II.  in  the  working  out 
of  a  new  reform  instrument,  something  coming  very 
near  indeed  to  a  national  constitution — the  same  in- 
strument, by  the  way,  which  had  received  his  sanction 
and  was  lying  on  his  desk  in  the  Winter  Palace  on  that 
dread  March  morning  when  he  was  brought  back  bleed- 
ing to  death  from  the  wounds  inflicted  by  the  Nihilist 
bomb. 

From  his  son,  Alexander  III.,  nothing  else  could  be 
expected  than  the  entire  abandonment  of  such  a  reform 
programme.  In  fact,  he  reverted  back  in  his  policy 
and  practices  to  the  dark  days  of  his  grandfather, 
Nicholas  I.     Russian  historians  have  since  said  that 


Chief  Reforms  Needed  285 

public  morality  in  their  country  stood  never  at  a  lower 
ebb  than  during  his  reign.  But,  strangely  enough, 
Nicholas  II.,  kind-hearted  and  enlightened  as  he  seems 
to  be,  to  judge  by  his  creation,  the  International  Court 
of  Arbitration  at  The  Hague,  has  followed  in  these  mat- 
ters in  his  father's  footsteps.  And  on  June  25,  igoo, 
he  dealt  the  most  vicious  blow  to  provincial  self-gov- 
ernment by  his  law  forbidding  the  annual  increase  of 
provincial  taxes  on  realty  by  more  than  three  per  cent, 
annually.  Thus,  by  closing  the  chief  avenue  of  income 
to  the  provincial  chambers,  he  has  made  it  impossible 
for  them  to  continue  in  even  that  modest  measure  of 
progress  to  which  they  were  committed  before. 

To  gain  a  general  view  of  the  situation  it  will,  how- 
ever, be  advisable  to  cast  a  glance  at  Russia's  Western 
border  provinces.  One  by  one  they  had  passed  under 
Russian  sway,  by  right  of  conquest  or  otherwise. 
Little  Russia  by  original  treaty  had  its  privileges  as 
well  as  Poland  and  the  Baltic  provinces  theirs,  and  as 
Finland  had  her  separate  constitution.  There  was  no- 
thing in  this  militating  against  the  well-understood  in- 
terests of  the  empire  as  a  whole.  The  view  taken  was 
that  these  separate  positions  were  to  guarantee  the 
further  development  of  these  provinces  inhabited  by 
non-Russian  races,  a  development  only  possible  by  ad- 
hering to  their  historical  traditions.  These  provinces, 
lying  close  to  countries  of  higher  culture,  were  to  enable 
Western  science,  industry,  technical  knowledge,  and 
more  refined  manners  to  find  entrance  in  Russia  itself. 


286  Russia 

This  purpose  has  been  accomplished  in  a  measure.  But 
after  a  while  it  was  abandoned.  One  by  one  the  special 
privileges  of  these  Western  provinces  were  taken  away 
from  them,  and  as  much  as  possible  they  were  reduced 
to  the  Russian  level.  Poland  lost  its  constitution,  its 
army,  finally  everything  else  that  had  been  national. 
True,  they  had  revolted  several  times,  and  thus  a  pre- 
text was  given.  It  was  said  in  Russia  that  the  safety 
of  the  country  demanded  the  shackling  of  Poland  and 
the  Russification  of  Ivithuania.  It  was  also  said  that 
the  safety  of  Russia  demanded  the  entire  uprooting  and 
destruction  of  the  German  spirit  and  language  in  the 
Baltic  provinces.  When  it  came  to  the  case  of  Finland, 
even  this  poor  pretext  was  dropped. 

But  these  special  privileges  had  permitted  all  the 
border  provinces,  to  nearly  all  of  which  nature  had 
been  a  stepmother,  to  render  efficient  service  to  the 
Russian  state  and  people  as  "  bearers  of  civilisation," 
and  at  the  same  time  to  create  within  them  model  con- 
ditions of  order,  impartial  justice,  and  general  well- 
being.  By  destroying  these  auspicious  conditions 
Russia  has  inflicted  vital  wounds  on  her  own  body, 
and  has  deprived  herself  of  one  of  the  most  efficient 
means  of  internal  progress. 

Bureaucracy  had  triumphed.  These  border  pro- 
vinces, too,  had  thus  been  thrown  open  as  grazing 
places  to  the  corrupt  Russian  government  official,  and 
uniformity,  or  nearly  that,  had  been  established.  The 
spiteful  anger  of  the  Russian  jingoes  at  seeing  con- 


Chief  Reforms  Needed  287 

quered  provinces  in  better  material  and  intellectual 
condition  than  those  of  tlie  conqueror,  the  heart  of 
Russia,  had  been  gratified.  It  was  nevertheless  utter 
foUy. 

Instead  of  striving  to  improve  their  own  conditions, 
to  try  for  special  privileges  suited  to  the  conditions 
of  Orel,  Moscow,  or  Saratoflf,  they  had  achieved  the 
retrogression  of  the  borders.  Russian  jingo  spirit  rose. 
It  found  vent  in  the  erection  at  Vilna  of  a  monument  to 
the  Polish  "  hangman,"  Mouravieff,  in  fiendish  provo- 
cation of  Polish  sentiment.  And  while  at  home  every 
thoughtful  Russian  feels  bitterly  the  bureaucratic  out- 
rages to  which  he  is  constantly  exposed,  and  calls  for 
reform,  he  rejoiced  at  the  introduction  of  a  similarly 
nefarious  system  in  the  Western  provinces  which  had 
been  flourishing  up  to  that  time. 

Yet  what  do  these  border  provinces  desire  ?  What 
else  but  a  fair  measure  of  this  very  provincial  autonomy 
which  the  Russian  patriot  at  home  so  ardently  desires. 
Reason  alone  ought  to  teach  him  that  what  would  be 
good  for  him  ought  certainly  to  be  good  for  his  more 
advanced  neighbours  in  the  Western  provinces.  In 
itself,  for  instance,  the  utter  folly  of  forcing  the  Polish 
or  the  Baltic  peasant,  living  under  such  different  agri- 
cultural conditions,  to  adhere  to  the  life  of  the  Russian 
peasant  in  the  "  black-earth  belt  "  ought  to  be  patent 
to  all.  Yet  it  is  precisely  this  senseless  uniformity 
which  during  the  present  reign  the  government  and 
bureaucracy  of  Russia  have  been  trying  to  enforce. 


288  Russia 

Amusing  in  a  certain  sense  are  some  of  the  stories 
told  in  Russia  to-day  of  bureaucratic  zeal  in  behalf  of 
uniformity.  Thus,  it  is  credibly  reported  that  a  few 
years  ago  a  man  in  St.  Petersburg  died  from  the  effects 
of  drinking  a  bottleful  of  liniment,  which  in  his  drunk- 
enness he  had  mistaken  for  vodka.  At  once  an  order 
was  issued  by  the  central  government  forbidding  all 
druggists  within  the  empire  hereafter  to  sell  such  lini- 
ment save  on  a  doctor's  prescription.  The  province 
of  Vyetka  had  until  recent  years  very  good  provincial 
schools.  Another  province,  that  of  Vologda,  had,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  poor  school  system.  Did  the  central 
government  take  measures  to  bring  up  the  latter  to  the 
level  of  the  former  ?  On  the  contrar}^  it  issued  orders 
the  clear  purport  of  which  was  to  bring  Vyetka  down 
to  the  standard  of  Vologda  —  all  for  the  sake  of  uni- 
formity. The  province  of  Tver  showed  aspirations  for 
a  national  constitution.  The  consequence  is  that  all 
other  provincial  chambers  are  suspected  of  similar  as- 
pirations, and  with  Tver  they  are  subjected  to  severely 
restrictive  measures.  Many  more  cases  of  the  kind 
could  be  cited. 

One  more  concrete  case  shall  be  mentioned,  just  be- 
cause it  strikingly  illustrates  in  another  direction  the 
serious  evils  of  centralisation.  Since  the  Baltic  pro- 
vinces passed  under  Russian  administration,  more  than 
thirty  years  ago,  a  number  of  proposed  urgent  legisla- 
tive measures  have  been  lying  idly  in  the  pigeonholes 
of  the  St.  Petersburg  government.      Several  of  these 


Chief  Reforms  Needed  289 

had  been  ready  for  promulgation  by  the  Baltic  cham- 
bers of  notables  when  the  annexation — or  amalgama- 
tion, if  that  sounds  better — took  place.  These  were 
bills  adjusting  definitely  the  subject  of  dividing  ade- 
quately and  fairly  peasant  hereditary  estates  among  the 
heirs,  the  settlement  of  rural  water  rights  and  privi- 
leges, etc.  Both  subjects  are  of  immense  importance 
to  the  Baltic  provinces,  where  the  peasant  owns,  gener- 
ally speaking,  holdings  of  considerable  intrinsic  value, 
and  where  agriculture  is  conducted  intensively.  Yet 
nothing  has  been  done  all  these  years  to  regulate  these 
matters,  despite  innumerable  petitions  to  that  effect  ad- 
dressed to  the  central  government.  The  answer  has 
always  been:  Wait  until  the  time  similar  legislation  be- 
comes feasible  for  the  other  parts  of  the  empire.  This 
answer  in  itself  is  an  egregious  absurdity,  for  the  agri- 
cultural conditions  of  Russia  proper,  particularly  of  the 
"  black-earth  belt,"  are  so  utterly  different  from  those 
of  the  Baltic  provinces  that  uniform  legislation  for  the 
two  would  under  all  circumstances  work  very  serious 
mischief  to  one  part  or  the  other.  The  Baltic  peasant 
is,  as  a  rule,  independent  owner  of  a  good-sized  farm, 
with  dwellings  and  outbuildings  far  better  and  more 
costly  than  those  on  half  the  estates  of  the  Russian 
nobles.  He  has  a  strong  sense  of  his  proprietary 
rights,  and  is  purely  an  individualist.  How,  therefore, 
can  his  needs  and  those  of  the  Russian  peasant,  with 
his  joint  ownership  in  arable  land,  his  joint  tax  re- 

sponsibilit}^  his  miserable  hovel,  his  want  of  cattle  and 
19 


290  Russia 

horses,  his  nomad  life,  tally  with  those  of  the  former? 
But  Russian  bureaucracy  to  all  these  objections  simply 
makes  answer:  There  must  be  uniformit)'. 

And  as  it  is  with  the  Baltic  peasant,  so  it  is,  in  larger 
or  smaller  measure,  with  the  peasant  in  I^ittle  Russia, 
in  Poland  and  L,ithuania,  in  the  Caucasus,  and  in  the 
Armenian  districts.  One  and  the  same  shoe  will  not 
fit  them  all. 

Now,  it  has  been  stated  before  that  almost  the  entire 
class  of  thinking  Russians  is  as  firmly  convinced  of  the 
need  of  decentralisation  and  of  more  or  less  pronounced 
provincial  autonomy  as  is  the  non-Russian  in  the  border 
provinces.  Down  almost  to  the  concluding  paragraphs 
in  the  weighty  memorial  from  the  pen  of  M.  de  Witte, 
published  in  1901,  and  to  which  reference  has  been 
made  before,  the  argument  and  more  especially  the  facts 
cited  all  make  in  the  same  direction.  Certainly,  no 
unbiassed  student  of  Russian  conditions  of  to-day  can 
fail  to  note  the  utter  inadequacy  of  the  present  central- 
ising system  for  the  well-understood  interests  of  the 
country.  It  is  the  same  everywhere,  only  in  varying 
degree,  whether  we  turn  to  purely  Russian  provinces 
like  Tamboflf  and  Orel,  Moscow  and  Tver,  Kostroma 
and  Vologda,  or  to  the  border  provinces.  The  thought- 
ful men  of  Russia,  so  far  as  they  do  not  belong  to 
bureaucracy,  and  have  their  judgment  not  warped  by 
purely  selfish  interests,  all  agree  that  autonomy,  the 
proper  safeguarding  of  local  and  provincial  interests,  is 
the  chief  step  necessary  to  put  the  empire  as  a  whole 


Chief  Reforms  Needed  291 

on  a  sound  economic  basis,  the  only  remedy  which 
will  achieve  agricultural  prosperity  and  cure  present 
ills. 

Privileges,  separate  rights,  in  other  words  autonomy, 
are  merely  the  recognition  of  the  unalterable  fact  that 
Russia  is  composed  not  of  homogeneous  territories,  and 
populations,  but  of  very  heterogeneous  ones,  differing 
immensely  in  race,  creed,  modes  of  thought,  geographic 
and  climatic  conditions,  making  separate  treatment  for 
each  fragment  indispensable. 

The  case  of  the  Cossacks  is  about  the  only  remaining 
one  of  which  it  can  be  said  that  it  is  in  a  healthy  con- 
dition. The  Cossacks,  especially  those  on  the  Don 
(composing  the  most  important  settlements  of  the  kind 
in  point  of  population  and  territory),  are  in  the  main 
satisfied  with  their  present  lot,  alone  among  the  130 
millions  of  Russian  subjects.  And  why  is  this  so? 
The  only  answer  can  be,  after  inspecting  the  situation, 
that  the  Cossacks  still  enjoy  a  certain  measure  of  inde- 
pendence and  self-government.  Russian  bureaucracy 
with  its  centralising  tendencies  is  still  excluded  from 
their  settlements.  There  is  prosperity  and  contentment 
among  the  Cossacks,  but  this  does  by  no  means  dimin- 
ish their  loyalty  to  the  Czar,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  Cossack  even  to-day  makes  the  best  Russian  col- 
oniser, the  most  efficient  advance  guard  of  Russian 
conquest  and  Russian  civilisation,  whether  it  be  on 
the  borders  of  the  Ussuri  or  Amoor,  in  Manchuria,  or 
Saghalien.     Their    chief  hdman   is   even   to-day   the 


292  Russia 

Czarevitch,  appointed  by  the  Czar  himself  as  his  locum- 
tenens.  It  is  strange  indeed  that  with  such  a  purely 
Russian  illustration  (for  the  Cossack,  be  it  remembered, 
is  by  race,  creed,  and  language  a  thorough  Russian) 
of  the  blessings  of  self-government  and  local  autonomy 
before  their  eyes,  anybody  in  Russia  should  fail  to  be 
an  enthusiastic  champion  of  provincial  independence. 

The  question  how  it  comes  that  the  Cossacks  alone 
have  escaped  so  far  the  St.  Petersburg  craze  for  uni- 
formity (or  at  least  escaped  it  in  a  measure)  may  be 
answered  in  various  ways.  The  most  plausible  reason 
for  it  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  Cossacks  are  a 
pretty  tough  morsel  to  swallow  even  for  so  potent  and 
autocratic  a  government  as  the  Russian.  The  Don 
Cossacks  alone  present  a  first-class  military  strength  of 
sixty-five  thousand  men,  in  a  separate  organisation  and 
under  self-chosen  commanders,  and  the  experience  of 
the  past,  the  events  in  Russian  history  with  which  the 
names  of  Pougatcheff,  Stenka  Rasin,  and  Bogdan 
Chraelnizki  are  connected — risings  under  these  local 
chiefs  which  it  took  deluges  of  blood  to  smother — have 
shown  the  Little  Father  in  St.  Petersburg  that  these 
men  are  not  to  be  trifled  with.  Assuredly  to  meddle 
with  their  liberties  would  not  be  so  easy  a  task  as  the 
extinction  of  similar  liberties  has  proved  in  the  case  of 
Finland  and  the  Baltic  Germans.  The  central  govern- 
ment, therefore,  so  far  at  least,  has  withstood  the  pres- 
sure of  bureaucracy,  eager  to  secure  new  fields  of  spoil. 

It  might  be  argued  that  considered  in  itself  a  steady 


Chief  Reforms  Needed  293 

policy  of  rendering  Russian  in  language  and  sentiment 
all  the  non-Russian  parts  of  the  empire  is  a  laudable 
one.  There  is,  besides,  the  authority  of  some  eminent 
writers  on  Russia  in  favour  of  such  a  contention.  Chief 
amongst  these  is  lyeroy-Beaulieu,  and  he  is  backed  up 
by  some  others,  all  non-Russians.  But  to  argue  in  this 
wise  is  to  misconceive  some  of  the  salient  features  of 
Russian  life.  Certainly,  the  Russian  is  right  in  trying 
to  make  good  subjects  out  of  Yakoots,  Cheremissians, 
and  similar  savage  tribes;  he  is  likewise  right  in  Rus- 
sianising  more  or  less  Turcomans  and  other  popula- 
tions in  Central  Asia,  all  of  them  on  a  lower  political 
and  social  plane  than  he  himself  occupies.  To  do  so  is 
the  part  of  sagacious  policy,  but  the  case  is  far  different 
when  it  comes  to  bringing  down  to  his  own  lower  level 
many  millions  of  non-Russians  inhabiting  the  Western 
border  provinces,  such  as  the  Poles  and  Lithuanians, 
the  populations  of  the  Baltic  provinces,  and  the  Finns, 
all  of  whom  have  been  and  are  still  "  civilisation 
bearers"  for  the  less  advanced  Russian.  That  surely 
cannot  be  the  part  of  wisdom,  more  especially  in  the 
case  of  those,  like  the  Lithuanians,  the  Baltic  Germans, 
and  the  Finns,  .who  up  to  the  hour  a  virulent  campaign 
of  Russification  was  opened  against  them,  had  unques- 
tionably been  fully  as  loyal  to  Czar  and  empire  as  the 
Russian  populations  proper. 

As  a  political  and  sociological  fact  the  dogma  will 
hold  good  for  any  country  that  nationalistic  propa- 
ganda is  only  permissible  and  beneficial  to  a  nation 


294  Russia 

when  such  propaganda  includes  at  the  same  time  the 
raising  of  the  moral,  intellectual,  and  social  level.  In 
all  other  cases  such  a  propaganda  is  an  almost  undi- 
luted evil  and  in  the  long  run  works  nothing  but 
serious  mischief  to  the  nation  at  large. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  Russian  shows  in  his 
contact  with  populations  on  a  lower  level  of  civilisation 
residing  within  his  empire  unusual  indulgence,  sym- 
pathy, and  forbearance.  Thus,  it  is  astonishing  that 
despite  the  ruthless  proselyting  spirit  shown  by  the 
Holy  Synod  in  the  Western  border  provinces  for  the 
purpose  of  converting  those  populations  to  the  Ortho- 
dox Church,  there  are  still  pagans  in  considerable 
number  dwelling  within  several  provinces  of  European 
Russia.  One  of  the  latter  is  Perm,  where  a  heathen 
population  of  about  150,000  in  number  has  been  left 
entirely  undisturbed.  Towards  Mohammedan  Tartars 
and  Mongolians,  too,  very  little  of  converting  zeal  is 
shown  by  M.  Pobyedonostseflf. 

Another  fact  which  must  not  be  forgotten  in  this 
connection  is  that  Russia,  after  all,  is  still  a  very 
sparsely  settled  country,  when  compared  with  coun- 
tries to  the  west.  The  density  of  her  population  is 
only  about  ten  to  the  square  mile,  for  European  Rus- 
sia about  thirty-five.  Furthermore,  she  is  even  now 
largely  an  Asiatic  empire;  her  expansion  has  been,  is, 
and  must  be  altogether  in  that  direction.  The  rate 
of  her  increase  in  Asia  has  for  a  large  number  of 
years   past   shown   an  annual  average   of  about  fifty 


Chief  Reforms  Needed  295 

thousand  square  miles.  The  great  majority  of  Rus- 
sians of  to-day  feel  themselves  far  more  as  an  Asiatic 
power  than  as  a  European  one,  which  is  but  natural. 

Taking  all  these  facts  together,  it  is  worse  than  folly, 
something  very  much  like  national  suicide,  wilfully  to 
hamper  by  systematic  persecution  of  her  forty-four 
millions  of  non-Russians  the  growth  of  the  empire  as 
a  whole  in  all  the  elements  of  culture. 

It  is  still  the  old  battle  in  Russia  that  has  been  rag- 
ing ever  since  the  days  of  Peter  the  Great — the  latter 
at  the  head  of  the  Europeanising  movement,  his  son 
Alexis  leading  the  Asiatising  current. 

Russia  has  always  found  enough  reasons  and  enough 
money  to  carry  on  an  aggressive  foreign  policy;  but 
for  interior  improvements,  for  all  those  purposes  which 
would  make  of  her  in  the  course  of  time  a  truly  civil- 
ised and  cultured  country,  she  has  unfortunately  never 
had  time  or  money.  To  continue  in  her  aggressive 
foreign  policy  means  for  her  the  retarding  of  internal 
civilising  methods.  With  it  she  becomes  untrue  to 
her  better  mission.  She  will  not  be  able  to  raise  her 
Asiatic  populations  to  her  own  higher  level,  but  instead 
will  bring  down  to  her  lower  standard  of  life  and  ideals 
those  elements  within  her  entire  population  that  have 
so  far  urged  and  pushed  her  onto  the  path  of  progress. 

A  crushing  defeat  for  Russia  in  a  large  foreign  war 
would  be  a  severe  lesson,  it  is  true,  one  very  painful  to 
Russian  pretensions,  Russian  jingo  spirit,  and  in  a  cer- 
tain sense  to  Russian  patriotism  of  every  stripe.     But, 


296  Russia 

for  all  that,  such  a  defeat  would  be  a  blessing  in  dis- 
guise to  the  whole  nation,  drunk  with  aggressive  power 
as  they  are,  and  with  a  national  conscience  callous  to 
the  best  dictates  of  enlightened  humanity  and  to  the 
unwritten  laws  of  fairness  in  dealing  with  weaker  but 
more  gifted  and  advanced  races. 

In  much  the  same  sense  the  Crimean  War,  bitter  as 
its  outcome  was  not  alone  to  the  reigning  despot,  Nich- 
olas I.,  but  as  well  to  the  whole  nation,  proved  in  the 
end  a  great  blessing  to  the  Russian  people.  It  showed, 
what  all  along  had  been  claimed  by  keen  foreign  ob- 
servers, that  this  immense  giant,  the  Russian  Empire, 
was  standing  on  "  feet  of  clay,"  and  the  knowledge 
thus  brought  home  to  Russian  statecraft  was,  after  the 
death  from  a  broken  heart  of  Nicholas  I.,  the  impetus 
that  brought  internal  reform.  The  successor,  Alexan- 
der II.,  saw  plainly  that  to  organise  and  make  avail- 
able to  the  full  the  crude  potentialities  of  Russia  it 
was  requisite  to  make  an  earnest  effort  at  curing  the 
manifold  internal  diseases  from  which  the  nation  was 
suffering. 

To  see  this  clearly  meant,  in  the  first  place,  the  aboli- 
tion of  serfdom  and  the  planning  of  provincial  auto- 
nomy, thus  for  the  first  time  in  the  national  history 
placing  Russia  squarely  on  the  highroad  to  internal 
prosperity.  Russia  at  the  end  of  the  Crimean  War  was 
at  the  very  end  of  her  resources  available  for  fighting 
purposes.  She  was  plunged  in  a  mire  of  debt  and 
poverty.      Another   similar   defeat   would   be   a   rude 


Chief  Reforms  Needed  297 

awakener  to  Russia  and  to  the  men  responsible  for  her 
present  retrograde  system  of  government.  The  lesson 
would  be  harsh  but  salutary.  From  being  puffed  up 
with  vainglory  and  a  sense  of  supposed  illimitable 
power  and  irresponsibility,  Russia  would  then  become 
imbued  with  a  spirit  of  healthy  repentance  for  past 
misdeeds,  for  wrongs  committed  against  civilisation. 
She  might  then  find  time  to  devote  herself  seriously  to 
the  task  so  long  neglected,  the  task  of  entering  on  a 
programme  of  internal  reform,  rousing  the  nation  for 
the  first  time  to  intelligent  and  joint  effort  in  behalf  of 
the  true  ideals  of  civilisation.  Russia's  best  friends  can 
wish  for  nothing  better  than  that.  Glory  of  foreign 
conquest  is  but  a  hollow  thing  when  it  means  continued 
misery  at  home,  when  success  abroad  would  be  equi- 
valent to  neglect  of  urgent  domestic  needs. 


INDEX 


Agrarian    Bank    for  the  No- 
bility, 67 
Aivasovski,  Russian  scientist, 

233 

Aksakoff  brothers,  noted  Rus- 
sian economists,  279 

Alaska,  4 

Alexander  I.,  self-confession, 
12 

Alexander  II.,  iii;  ukase  of 
emancipation  of,  172;  181, 
229,  241,  247  and  subs.,  249, 
251,  254  and  subs,,  273,  280, 
283  and  subs.,  296 

Alexander  III.,  44,  230,  249, 
269,  284 

Alexis,  Prince,  executed  by 
his  own  father,  9,  295 

Amoor,  region  of,  4 

AndreyefF,  Russian  writer,  201 

Anglo-Japanese  treaty  of  alli- 
ance, 33 

Anna,  Empress,  10 

Antichrist,  13 

Arbitration,  international 
court  of,  at  The  Hague, 
285 

Artel,  association  of  Russian 
workmen,  108  and  subs. 

"  Assignates, ' '  depreciated 
Russian  paper  currency,  53 

Astrakhan,  139 


Attila,  5 

Bakounin,  Russian  anarchist, 
244 

Baku,  220 

Beet-sugar  industry,  Russian, 
96  and  subs. 

Bell,  The,  an  "underground " 
Russian  publication,  244 

BestousheiF,  10 

"Black-earth  Belt,"  122  and 
subs.  ;  Russian  definition  of, 
151  and  subs. 

Bogolepoff,  assassination  of, 
232,  271 

Bokhara,  22 

Brcheski,  Russian  economist, 
124 

British  Bible  Society,  207 

Bruelow,  Russo-German,  sci- 
entist, 233 

Bunge,  Russian  finance  minis- 
ter during  reign  of  Alexan- 
der III.,  129 

Candahar,  38 
Catherine  II.,  6,  51,  136 
Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  3 
Chekhoff,  Russian  writer,  201 
Cheremissians,  tribe  of,  293 
Chernigofif,  province  of,  122 


299 


300 


Index 


Chmelnizki,  Bogdan,  leader  iu 
Cossack  rebellion,  292 

Cossacks,  of  Dniepr  and  Don, 
raids  of,  13  and  subs. 

Courland,  245 

Crimean  War,  16,  53,  296 

Crown  peasant,  112 

Czarevitch,  292 

Dalny,  29 

Djinghis  Khan,  5,  274 

Dolgorouky,  Prince,  10 

Donetz,  Russian  mineral  re- 
gion, 91 

Dorpat  (in  Russian,  Yurieff), 
232,  245 

Dostoyeffski,  Russian  author, 
236 

Drang  nach  Osten  (Easterly 
expansion),  3 

Drunkenness  of  Russian  peas- 
antry, 142  and  subs. 

Dual  Alliance,  65 

Dukhoborzis,  Russian  sect  of, 
209 

Engelhardt,  Baltic  Russian 
writer,  189 

Engelmaun,  Russian  econo- 
mist, 152 

"  Enormous  productivity  "  of 
Russia,  76 

Esthonia,  245 

European  Messenger,  leading 
Russian  magazine,  224 

Finland,  249  and  subs. 
Franco-German  War,  246 
Frederick  the  Great,  10 


Galitzyn,    Prince,    Russian 

statesman,  207 
Gobineau,  French  writer  and 

philosopher,  42 
Gogol,    Russian    writer,     170, 

234 

Gold  mines,  Siberian,  67 

"Gold  tribute  "  of  Russia,  82 

Golizyue,  Prince,  10 

Golovine,  S.,  Russian  econ- 
omist, 23,  57,  80,  135 

Goremykin,  former  member 
of  Russian  Cabinet,  118,  259 

Gorki,  201 

GortchakoflF,  Prince,  Russian 
statesman,  280 

Grashdanin,  leading  Russian 
newspaper,  136,  165 

Hague,  The,  tribunal  of,  66 
Hanseatic  League,  216 
Haxthausen,  Baron,  279 
Herat,  38 

Herzen,  Alexander,  Russian 
politician   and    writer,    244, 

279 

Hilkoff,  Prince,  Russian  min- 
ister of  railroads,  71  and 
subs. 

Holy  Synod,  197  and  subs., 
227  and  subs.,  248,  294 

Icon,    diminutive    Russian 

shrine,  89  and  subs. 
Ignatieff,  Panslavist,  16,  249 
Imperial,  Russian  gold  coin  of 

10  roubles,  68 
Imperial  Senate,  Russian,  281 
Industrial  collapse  of  Russia, 

loi  and  subs. 


Index 


301 


"Interest  spheres,"  Russian, 

37 
Invasion,  French,  of  1812,  12 
Irruption,   Mongolian,   in  the 

13th  century,  8 
Ispahan,  38 

IssayefF,  Russian  economist, 98 
Ivan  the  Terrible,  217 

Kaluga,  no 

Karamsin,   Russian    scientist, 

233 
Kasan,  223  ;    province  of,   128 
KatkofT,    Panslavist,    16,    243 

and  subs.,  269 
Keussler,  Russian  economist, 

152 

Khazars,  8 

Khiva,  39 

Kieflf,  220,  229 

KostomarofF,  noted  Russian 
historian,  279 

Kostroma,  province  of,  202, 
290 

Kotshoubey,  Prince,  12 

Kovalevski,  Russian  econom- 
ist, 225,  and  elsewhere 

Kulak,  rise  and  progress  of, 
120  and  subs, 

Kursk,  province  of,  122 

Lake  Baikal,  31 

Land  Mortgage  Bank,  177 

LeontyeflF,  Panslavic  leader, 
269 

Leroy-Beaulieu,  French  econ- 
omist and  writer,  293 

Libau,  56,  220 

Livonia,  245 


Lodz,  90,  220 

Lokhlin,  Russian  economist, 
114,  124,  132 

Malta,  Island  of,  12 

Marshals  of  nobility,  281 

Mazeppa,  14 

Meat  production,  decrease  of, 
in  Russia,  133 

MelikofF,  Loris,  Russian  states- 
man, 273 

Mendeleyeff,  Professor,  noted 
Russian  chemist,  269 

Mennonite,  German,  colonies 
in  Russia,  136 

Mennonites,  German,  208  and 
subs. 

Mestcherski,  Prince,  136 

MilukoflF,  Russian  economist, 

152 
Milyutin,  Russian  statesman, 

245,  280 
Mir,  117  and  subs. 
Molokhans,  Russian   sect  of, 

209 
Moscow  Gazette,  16 
MouravieflF,   Russian   general, 

244,  287 
Muennich,  10 
Mulhall,    British     economist, 

135 

Napoleon  I.,  53 

Ncdlya,  Russian  periodical, 
228 

N'  I  ucliefF,  M.,  government  re- 
port of,  190 

Nicholas  I.,  296 

Nicholas  II.,  4,  43,  273,  278, 
285 


302 


Index 


Nihilistic  conspiracies  of  1880,    1 
284  and  elsewhere 

Nikolai-On,  Russian  econo- 
mist, 124 

Nishni-Novgorod,  216,  221 

Nobles'  Agrarian  Bank,  177 

North  German  Confederation, 
246 

Nova  Zembla,  18 

Novikoflf,  M.,  government  re- 
port of,  125  and  subs.,  144, 
157  and  subs. 

Novoe  Vremya,  leading  Rus- 
sian paper,  221,  222 

Odessa,  88,  220 
Old  Faith  Sect,  207 
Old  Russian  Party,  9 
Old  Slavonic  tongue,  207 
Orel,  province  of,  287,  290 
Orenburg,   40 ;     province    of, 

128 
Orthodox     Church,    195     and 

subs. 
Ostermann,  10,  52 
Oufa,  province  of,  128 
Ouglitch,  113,  221 

Panine,      Prince,       quotation 

from,  II 
Panslavic  Party,  45 
Pashkoff,  Colonel,  founder  of 

Russian  sect,  209  and  subs. 
Pensa,  no 

Perm,  province  of,  141,  294 
Petchenegians,  8 
Peter  11.,  10 
Peter  the  Great,  2,  3,  9,  10,  14, 

27,  44,  217,  240,  295 
Plehve,  M.  de,  44,  274 


Pobyedonostseff,  Procurator 
of  the  Holy  Synod,  92,  195 
and  subs.,  227,  232,  273,  294 

PolenoflF,  M.,  Russian  econom- 
ist, 113,  133 

Polish  uprising  of  1863,  238 
and  subs. 

Polovzi,  8 

Poltava,  14 

Pood,  Russian  weight,  about 
forty  pounds,  12 

Port  Arthur,  29 

Pougatcheff,  leader  in  Cossack 
rebellion,  292 

Provincial  chambers,  Russian, 
curtailment  of  powers,  281 

Pskov,  216,  221 

Radzig,  Russian  economist,  98 
Railroads,  new  Russian,  105 
Rasin,  Stenka,  leader  in  Cos- 
sack rebellion,  292 
Resht,  on  the  Caspian  Sea,  39 
Reval,  56,  220 
Riga,  52,  220 
Rostoff,  220 

Rural  Agrarian  Bank,  177 
Rural  district  captains,  270 
Rurik,  44 

Russian  loan  of  1901,  78 
Russification,  process  of,  293 
Russo-German        commercial 
treaty  of  1894,  97 

Saghalien,  Russian  island  of, 
291 

Samara,  province  of,  128;  sta- 
tistical data  of,  154 

Saratoff,  province  of,  122;  town 
of,  223,  287 


Index 


303 


Sassulitch,  Vera,  Nihilist 
leader,  244 

Scherer,  J.  B.,  quotation  from, 
II 

Schwanebach,  M.,  Russian 
economist,  member  of  the 
imperial  council,  85,  124 

Silesian  coal,  95 

Simbirsk,  223 

Simkhovitch,  Russian  econo- 
mist, 114,  124 

Sipiaguine,  Russian  states- 
man, 229 

Skarshinski,  Professor,  224 

Skobeleff,  General,  Panslavist, 
16,  249 

Spitzbergen,  18 

Ssetche,  Cossack  camps,  14, 
218 

Stundists,  208 

St.  Helena,  53 

St.  Vladimir,  Russian  patron 
saint,  211 

Svietelka,  Russian  rural  co- 
operative workshops,  108 
and  subs. 

Tamboff,  province  of,  290 

Tamerlane,  20 

Tartar,  yoke  of,  13 

Tashkend,  22 

Tcherkasski,  Russian  states- 
man, 245 

Teheran,  38 

Terpigoreff,  Russian  writer, 
172 

Testament  of  Peter  the  Great, 
172 

Teutonic  Knights,  245 

Tolstoi,  Leo,  200 


Tolstoi,  Count  Alexis,  Rus- 
sian writer  and  statesman, 

234 

Transsiberian  Railroad,  73  and 
subs. 

Transvaal,  25 

Trubnikoff,  Russian  econo- 
mist, 99,  220 

Tula,  88,  no,  221 

Tundras,  19 

TurgueniefiF,  Russian  writer, 
236 

Turkish  War,  of  1792,  15;  of 
1876,  16,  54,  249;  of  182S,  16 

Tver,  no,  221;  province  of, 
288 

"Unchristian,"  13 

United  States,  industrial  fever 

of,  70 
Universities,  Russian,   system 

of  superintending,  269 
Ural,  91 
Ussuri,  region  of,  4;  river  of, 

contributary  to  Auioor,  291 

Varangian,  8 
Vikings,  Norman,  7 
Vilna,  90,  287 
Vistula,  8 

Vladimir,  94,  no,  220 
Vladivostok,  29 
Vologda,  province  of,  288,  290 
Voronesh,  province  of,  122 
Vyedoniosti,  Moscow,  leading 
Russian  paper,  154,  224.  244 
Vyetka,  province  of,  288 

War  Department,  Russian, 
schools  under,  225 


304 


Index 


Warsaw,  90,  220 

Winter  Palace,  chief  imperial 
residence  in  St.  Petersburg, 
284 

Wisbnegradsky,  Russian  fi- 
nance minister,  54  and  subs., 
97,  105,  no,  129,  177  and 
subs.,  232 

Witte,  M.  de,  40,  43,  58  and 
subs,,  93  and  subs. ;  speech 


of,  94,  ioT,io7,  110,129,131, 
134,  154  and  subs.,  177  and 
subs.,  224,  271,  279,  290 

Yakoots,  tribe  of,  293 
Yaroslav,  province  of,  113 
YermoloflF,  Russian  economist 

152 

Zone  system,  74 


Our  European  Neighbours 

Edited  by  WILLIAM   HARBUTT  DAWSON 

12°.    Illustrated.     Each,  net  $1.20 
By  Mail  .  ....      1.30 

I.— FRENCH   LIFE  IN  TOWN   AND  COUNTRY 

By  Hannah  Lynch. 

"  Miss  Lynch's  pages  are  thoroughly  interesting  and  suggestive. 
Her  style,  too,  is  not  common.  It  is  marked  by  vivacity  without 
any  drawback  of  looseness,  and  resembles  a  stream  that  runs 
strongly  and  evenly  between  walls.  It  is  at  once  distinguished  and 
useful.  .  .  .  Her  five-page  description  (not  dramatization)  of  the 
grasping  Paris  landlady  is  a  capital  piece  of  work.  .  .  .  Such 
well-finished  portraits  are  frequent  in  Miss  Lynch's  book,  which  is 
small,  inexpensive,  and  of  a  real  excellence."—  The  London  Academy. 
"  Miss  Lynch's  book  is  particularly  notable.  It  is  the  first  of  a 
series  describing  the  home  and  social  life  of  various  European 
peoples — a  series  long  needed  and  sure  to  receive  a  warm  vcelcome. 
Her  style  is  frank,  vivacious,  entertaining,  captivating,  just  the 
kind  for  a  book  which  is  not  at  all  statistical,  political,  or  contro- 
versial. A  special  excellence  of  her  book,  reminding  one  of  Mr. 
Whiteing's,  lies  in  her  continual  contrast  of  the  English  and  the 
French,  and  she  thus  sums  up  her  praises:  'The  English  are 
admirable  :  the  French  are  lovable.'  "—The  Outlook. 

II GERMAN  LIFE  IN  TOWN  AND  COUNTRY 

By  W.  H.  Dawson,  author  of  "  Germany  and  the 
Germans,"  etc. 

"The  book  is  as  full  of  correct,  impartial,  well-digested,  and 
■well-presented  information  as  an  egg  is  of  meat.  One  can  only 
recommend  it  heartily  and  without  reserve  to  all  who  wish  to  gain 
an  insight  into  German  life.  It  worthily  presents  a  great  nation, 
now  the  greatest  and  strongest  in  Europe. ' ' — Commercial  Advertiser. 

III.— RUSSIAN    LIFE   IN  TOWN   AND  COUNTRY 

By  Francis  H.  E.  Palmer,  sometime  Secretary  to 

H.    H.    Prince    Droutskop-Loubetsky    (Equerry   to 

H.  M.  the  Emperor  of  Russia). 

"  We  would  recommend  this  above  all  other  works  of  its  charac- 
ter to  those  seeking  a  clear  general  understanding  of  Russian  life, 
character,  and  conditions,  but  who  have  not  the  leisure  or  inclinar 
tion  to  read  more  voluminous  tomes.  ...  It  cannot  be  too  highly 
recommended,  for  it  conveys  practically  all  that  well-informed 
people  should  know  of  '  Our  European  Neighbours.'  "—Mail  and 
Express. 


Our  European  Neighbours 


IV.— DUTCH  LIFE  IN  TOWN  AND  COUNTRY 

By  P.  M.  Hough,  B.A. 

"  There  is  no  other  book  which  gives  one  so  clear  a  picture  of 
actual  life  in  the  Netherlands  at  the  present  date.  For  its  accurate 
presentation  of  the  Dutch  situation  in  art,  letters,  learning,  and 
politics  as  well  as  in  the  round  of  common  life  in  town  and  city, 
this  book  deserves  the  heartiest  praise." — Evening  Post. 

"  Holland  is  always  interesting,  in  any  line  of  study.  In  this 
w^ork  its  charm  is  carefully  preserved.  The  sturdy  toil  of  the  people, 
their  quaint  characteristics,  their  conservative  retention  of  old  dress 
and  customs,  their  quiet  abstention  from  taking  part  in  the  great 
affairs  of  the  world  are  clearly  reflected  in  this  faithful  mirror.  The 
illustrations  are  of  a  high  grade  of  photographic  reproductions." — 
Washington  Post. 

v.— SWISS  LIFE  IN  TOWN  AND  COUNTRY 

By  Alfred  T.  Story,  author  of  the  "  Building  of 

the  British  Empire,"  etc. 

"  We  do  not  know  a  single  compact  book  on  the  same  subject 
in  which  Swiss  character  in  all  its  variety  finds  so  sympathetic  and 
yet  thorough  treatment ;  the  reason  of  this  being  that  the  author 
has  enjoyed  privileges  of  unusual  intimacy  with  all  classes,  which 
prevented  his  lumping  the  people  as  a  whole  without  distinction 
of  racial  and  cantonal  feeling." — Nation. 

"There  is  no  phase  of  the  lives  of  these  sturdy  republicans, 
whether  social  or  political,  which  Mr.  Story  does  not  touch  upon ; 
and  an  abundance  of  illustrations  drawn  from  unhackneyed  sub- 
jects adds  to  the  value  of  the  hoo^L." —Chicago  Dial. 

VI.— SPANISH  LIFE  IN  TOWN  AND  COUNTRY 

By  L.   liiGGiN. 

"Illuminating  in  all  of  its  chapters.  She  writes  in  thorough 
sympathy,  bom  of  long  and  intimate  acquaintance  with  Spanish 
people  of  to-day." — St.  Paul  Press. 

"The  author  knows  her  subject  thoroughly  and  has  written  a 
most  admirable  volume.  She  writes  with  genuine  love  for  the 
Spaniards,  and  with  a  sympathetic  knowledge  of  their  character 
and  their  method  of  life." — Canada  Methodist  Review. 


Our  European  Neighbours 


VII.— ITALIAN  LIFE  IN  TOWN  AND  COUNTRY 

By   LUIGI  ViLLARI. 

"  A  most  interesting  and  instructive  volume,  which  presents  an 
intimate  view  of  the  social  habits  and  manner  of  thought  of  the 
people  of  which  it  tre&ts."—Bu^alo  Express. 

"  A  book  full  of  information,  comprehensive  and  accurate.  Its 
numerous  attractive  illustrations  add  to  its  interest  and  value.  We 
are  glad  to  welcome  such  an  addition  to  an  excellent  series."— 
Syracuse  Hefald. 

Vlil.— DANISH  LIFE  IN  TOWN  AND  COUNTRY 

By  Jessie  H.  Brochner. 

"  Miss  Brochner  has  written  an  interesting  book  on  a  fascinat- 
ing subject,  a  book  which  should  arouse  an  interest  in  Denmark  in 
those  who  have  not  been  there,  and  which  can  make  those  who 
know  and  are  attracted  by  the  country  very  homesiak  to  return."— 
Commercial  Advertiser. 

"She  has  sketched  with  loving  art  the  simple,  yet  pure  and 
elevated  lives  of  her  countrymen,  and  given  the  reader  an  excellent 
idea  of  the  Danes  from  every  point  of  view."— CAi'ca^o  Tribune. 


IX.— AUSTRO-HUNQARIAN   LIFE  IN  TOWN  AND 
COUNTRY 

By  Francis   H.  E.  Palmer,  author  of   "  Russian 

Life  in  Town  and  Country,"  etc. 

"No  volume  in  this  interesting  series  seems  to  us  so  notable  or 
valuable  as  this  on  Austro-Hungarian  life.  Mr.  Palmer's  long  resi- 
dence in  Elurope  and  his  intimate  association  with  men  of  mark, 
especially  in  their  home  life,  has  given  to  him  a  richness  of  experi- 
ence evident  on  every  page  of  the  book." — The  Outlook. 

"This  book  cannot  be  too  warmly  recommended  to  those  who 
have  not  the  leisure  or  the  spirit  to  read  voluminous  tomes  of  this 
subject,  yet  we  wish  a  clear  general  understanding  of  Austro-Hun- 
garian lik."— Hartford  Times. 


Our  European  Neighbours 


X.— TURKISH  LIFE  IN  TOWN  AND  COUNTRY 

By  L.   M.  J.  Garnett. 

Miss  Garnett,  while  not  altogether  ignoring  the  dark  side  of 
life  in  the  Empire,  portrays  more  particularly  the  peaceable  life  of 
the  people— the  domestic,  industrial,  social,  and  religious  life  and 
customs,  the  occupations  and  recreations,  of  the  numerous  and  vari- 
ous races  within  the  Empire  presided  over  by  the  Sultan. 

"The  general  tone  of  the  book  is  that  of  a  careful  study,  the 
style  is  flowing,  and  the  matter  is  presented  in  a  bright,  taking 
way." — St.  Paul  Press. 

"To  the  average  mind  the  Turk  is  a  little  better  than  a  blood- 
thirsty individual  with  a  plurality  of  wives  and  a  paucity  of  vir- 
tues. To  read  this  book  is  to  be  pleasantly  disillusioned."— /^Wjc 
Opinion. 

XI BELGIAN  LIFE  IN  TOWN  AND  COUNTRY 

By  Demetrius  C.  Boulger 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  EACILITY 


AA    000  493  794    2 


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